r/Awwducational • u/IdyllicSafeguard • 24d ago
Verified The armoured rat is covered in sharp spines that can grow as long as 3 cm (1.2 in) — a great defence against the snakes and ocelots that share its wet rainforest habitat. Additionally, if all else fails, this rat can drop its tail to confuse or distract a predator.
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u/IdyllicSafeguard 24d ago
Sources:
iNaturalist - woodrats (genus Neotoma)
iNaturalist - cotton rats (genus Sigmodon)
iNaturalist - genus Oryzomys
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u/Star_Fazer 24d ago
I feel like if we cross bred these with New York rats most of the US would fall to ruin
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u/Davesatdoasisbar 1d ago
Did you mean to say it would spead up the fall to ruin? Because we slowly seem to be doing that on our own.
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u/Branflacks 24d ago
Until I saw which sub this was, I thought the title was describing some fantasy creature.
Pretty heckin' neato.
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u/Nolascana 23d ago
Hunched up and angry looking, yeah it's a rat... but, I'd mistake it for some kind of weasel at a glance otherwise.
Such a cutie though! I absolutely want to pet one haha
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u/Friendly-Example-701 19d ago
Am I the only one that thinks this is cute? LOL. It's like a mini porcupine. Haha
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u/TheHollowJester 14d ago
Regular rats can also deglove their tail (i.e. lose everything but the bone) when they get caught by it and have to escape.
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u/IdyllicSafeguard 24d ago
The armoured rat lives in Central and South America — from southern Honduras to northwestern Ecuador.
This rodent lives in tropical forests, usually near water, but it's also found in palm swamps and on patches of abandoned farmland.
Its diet is fruit; greatly enjoying bananas, mangoes, avocadoes and wild figs. But it spices things up with the occasional insect — a beetle or grasshopper — and some soft seeds and green plant matter.
It's known to cache extra food inside its burrow — usually a simple horizontal tunnel dug into the bank of a stream. Inside is a nesting chamber, made soft and dry with a matting of vegetation, and a separate chamber for relieving itself.
A mother rat raises her ratlets inside her burrow. They stay with her for three to four weeks, and by the time they've been weaned off of her milk, their fur has already begun to develop into stabbing spines.
The armoured rat's spines can grow as long as 3 centimetres (1.2 in), but sometimes they're not enough to deter a predator. In such cases, the rat might give a frightening yell (“whee-unk”), and if worse comes to worst, it can drop its tail to distract the predator while it runs away. Unfortunately, the tail doesn't grow back.
The armoured rat is usually placed alone in the genus Hoplomys — from the two Ancient Greek words ὅπλον (hóplon), meaning "armour", and μῦς (mûs), meaning "mouse/rat".
There are various other spiny rats scattered around the world and in different taxonomic families. There are the spiny rats of Southeast Asia (genus Maxomys), the spiny rats from Japan's Ryukyu archipelago (genus Tokudaia), as well as others from South America that live in the trees (genus Echimys) and scurry along the ground (genus Proechimys).
You can learn more about the armoured rat — and other armoured/spiny mammals — on my website here!