Wife feeds the birds and it has attracted a cute rat. It's brown and it's body is twice the length of his tail. I am using a .177 pellet and got one male and one female. There are still two feeding that I know of. Can anyone ID this critter? Thanks.

This is your standard brown rat, more properly called a Norway Rat. Here's some more information on the beasts, but your control measures seem to be working nicely.

Norway Rats, Biology, Rodent Elimination Methods (http://www.pestproducts.com/norway.htm#Rats) have

I looked closer at this rat, having killed 3 since I posted. As previously posted, the first rat was a male. All the others were female. All females are the same size at 6 inch body and 3 inch tail. The male body was a little longer but it's tale was about 2.5 inches (could have been cut off by something). The Norway rat appears to be twice as large as the rats I have.

Six inch body length is a respectable size for a brown rat. The defining characteristics of small ears, blunt nose, short tail, and bulbous eyes are all apparent in your photos. As far as size, Rick Moranis and Kobe Bryant are both Homo Sapiens.

I understand and appreciate what you're telling me but I cannot find any references where Norway rats grow to something slightly larger than the common field mouse. If you could provide a reference, it would be surely appreciated. Thanks.



"• Morphological differences: Norway rats are larger, heavier and longer than house mice (Norway rat: 350-650 grams, 9-11 inch bodies and 7-9 inch tails; house mice: 30-90 grams, 3-4 inch bodies and 3-4 inch tails). Correlated with this larger size, Norway rat body parts are larger than those of the house mouse -- rats have larger ears, feet etc. The heads of Norway rats are heavy, blunt and chunky, house mouse heads are small and sharply triangular with pointed muzzles. Note, however, that Norway rats have smaller ears relative to their heads than house mice."

Difference between Rats and Mice (http://www.ratbehavior.org/RatsMice.htm)

Here's a site on identifying brown rats. Note that size is not mentioned, as juveniles are seen more often than fully adult rats.

How to Identify Brown Rats | eHow.com (http://www.ehow.com/how_2311005_identify-brown-rats.html)

Here's another, note that all size ranges say "up to"

http://wildlife1.wildlifeinformation.org/S/0MRodenti/Muridae/Rattus/Rattus_norvegicus/Rattus_norvegicus.html

Are you certain that the ones you shot were fully grown?

<g> No way I could be certain these are fully grown rats. I've never seen any larger and have been seeing them for a year or so now. I finally decided to wage war against them because I couldn't get my wife to stop feeding the birds. The first rat shot was a well developed male with the ability to produce large numbers of little rats. He looked pretty mature to me, but whether he was full grown remains a question. I'll keep taking advantage of the fact they don't see beyond a few feet and take my time when aiming. <grin>

You're not alone.

The Kodiak Den: Norway Rats vs. Roof Rats (http://kodiakden.blogspot.com/2007/06/norway-rats-vs-roof-rats.html)

Good Hunting!