When a Muskrat Has Babies Is the Den Empty

Semiaquatic rodent native to North America

Muskrat
A muskrat at the shore of Gubiščes lake in Daugavpils, Latvia
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific nomenclature
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Society:	Rodentia
Family:	Cricetidae
Subfamily:	Arvicolinae
Tribe:	Ondatrini
Genus:	Ondatra Link, 1795
Species:	O. zibethicus
Binomial proper noun
Ondatra zibethicus (Linnaeus, 1766)
Muskrat ranges:  Native  introduced  introduced range in Due south America not shown
Synonyms
Brush zibethicus Linnaeus, 1766

The muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus) is a medium-sized semiaquatic rodent native to Due north America and an introduced species in parts of Europe, Asia, and Due south America. The muskrat is establish in wetlands over a wide range of climates and habitats. It has important effects on the ecology of wetlands,^[2] and is a resource of food and fur for humans.

Developed muskrats counterbalance 0.6–2 kg (1.3–4.4 lb), with a body length of 20–35 cm (8–10 in). They are covered with brusk, thick fur of medium to dark brown color. Their long tails, covered with scales rather than hair, are their main means of propulsion. Muskrats spend most of their time in the water, and can swim nether water for 12 to 17 minutes. They alive in families, consisting of a male and female pair and their young. To protect themselves from the common cold and from predators, they build nests that are often burrowed into the bank with an underwater archway. Muskrats feed generally on cattail and other aquatic vegetation, simply also eat small animals.

Ondatra zibethicus is the only species in the genus Ondatra and tribe Ondatrini. It is the largest species in the subfamily Arvicolinae, which includes 142 other species of rodents, mostly voles and lemmings. Muskrats are referred to as "rats" in a full general sense because they are medium-sized rodents with an adaptable lifestyle and an omnivorous diet. They are not, yet, members of the genus Rattus. They are not closely related to beavers, with which they share habitat and full general advent.

Etymology [edit]

The muskrat's proper name probably comes from a word of Algonquian (possibly Powhatan^[iii]) origin, muscascus (literally "information technology is red", and so called for its colorings), or from the Abenaki native word mòskwas, as seen in the primitive English name for the animal, musquash. Considering of the association with the "musky" odor, which the muskrat uses to mark its territory, and its flattened tail, the name became altered to musk-beaver;^[iv] later it became "muskrat" due to its resemblance to rats.^{[5] [6] [seven]}

Similarly, its specific proper name zibethicus means "musky", being the adjective of zibethus "civet musk; civet".^{[8] [9]} The genus name comes from the Huron give-and-take for the animal, ondathra,^[10] and entered New Latin as Ondatra via French.^[11]

Clarification [edit]

An adult muskrat is nigh 40–seventy cm (xvi–28 in) long, one-half of that length existence the tail, and weighs 0.6–2 kg (1.3–4.iv lb).^[12] That is virtually four times the weight of the brownish rat (Rattus norvegicus), though an adult muskrat is only slightly longer. It is nigh certainly^{[ description needed ]} the largest and heaviest member of the diverse family Cricetidae, which includes all voles, lemmings, and most mice native to the Americas, and hamsters in Eurasia. The muskrat is much smaller than a beaver (Castor canadensis), with which they often share habitat.^{[v] [6]}

Muskrats are covered with short, thick fur, which is medium to dark brown or black in color, with the belly a bit lighter (countershaded); as the animal ages, it turns partly gray. The fur has two layers, which provides protection from cold water. They have long tails covered with scales rather than hair. To aid in swimming, their tails are slightly flattened vertically,^[thirteen] a shape that is unique to them.^[14] When they walk on land, their tails elevate on the ground, which makes their tracks like shooting fish in a barrel to recognize.^{[v] [6]}

Muskrats spend most of their time in water and are well suited to their semiaquatic life. They can swim underwater for 12 to 17 minutes. Their bodies, like those of seals and whales, are less sensitive to the buildup of carbon dioxide than those of virtually other mammals. They can shut off their ears to keep h2o out. Their hind feet are webbed and are their main ways of propulsion. Their tail functions as a rudder, decision-making the direction they swim in.^[15]

Distribution and ecology [edit]

A muskrat eating a plant, showing the long claws used for digging burrows

Muskrats are institute over well-nigh of Canada and the United States and a small part of northern Mexico. They were introduced to Europe in the start of the 20th century and have get an invasive species in northwestern Europe. They mostly inhabit wetlands, areas in or near saline and freshwater wetlands, rivers, lakes, or ponds. They are not found in Florida, where the round-tailed muskrat, or Florida water rat (Neofiber alleni), fills their ecological niche.^[5]

Their populations naturally cycle; in areas where they become arable, they are capable of removing much of the vegetation in wetlands.^[sixteen] They are idea to play a major office in determining the vegetation of prairie wetlands in particular.^[17] They also selectively remove preferred establish species, thereby changing the affluence of plant species in many kinds of wetlands.^[two] Species normally eaten include cattail and yellow water lily. Alligators are thought to be an important natural predator, and the absence of muskrats from Florida may in part be the result of alligator predation.^[18]

While much wetland habitat has been eliminated due to human activity, new muskrat habitat has been created by the structure of canals or irrigation channels (due east.g., acequias), and the muskrat remains common and widespread. They are able to live alongside streams which contain the sulfurous water that drains away from coal mines. Fish and frogs perish in such streams, yet muskrats may thrive and occupy the wetlands. Muskrats also benefit from human persecution of some of their predators.^[6]

The muskrat is classed as a "prohibited new organism" nether New Zealand'south Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Human action 1996, preventing it from being imported into the country.^[19]

The trematode Metorchis conjunctus can also infect muskrats.^[twenty]

Invasiveness status [edit]

In Europe, the muskrat has been included in the list of invasive conflicting species of Matrimony concern (the Union list) since August 2, 2017.^[21] This implies that this species cannot be imported, bred, transported, commercialized, or intentionally released into the surround in the whole of the European Union.^[22]

Beliefs [edit]

Muskrats unremarkably alive in families consisting of a male and female person and their young. During the jump, they oftentimes fight with other muskrats over territory and potential mates. Many are injured or killed in these fights. Muskrat families build nests to protect themselves and their young from cold and predators. In streams, ponds, or lakes, muskrats burrow into the bank with an underwater archway. These entrances are 6–viii in (15–20 cm) broad. In marshes, button-ups are constructed from vegetation and mud. These push button-ups are upwards to 3 ft (91 cm) in height. In snowy areas, they continue the openings to their button-ups closed past plugging them with vegetation, which they supersede every day. Some muskrat button-ups are swept away in spring floods and take to be replaced each yr. Muskrats besides build feeding platforms in wetlands.^{[ description needed ]} They help maintain open up areas in marshes, which helps to provide habitat for aquatic birds.^{[6] [23]}

Muskrats are most active at dark or near dawn and sunset. They feed on cattail and other aquatic vegetation. They exercise not store food for the winter, but sometimes eat the insides of their push button-ups. While they may appear to steal food beavers take stored, more seemingly cooperative partnerships with beavers be, as featured in the BBC David Attenborough wildlife documentary The Life of Mammals.^[24] Plant materials etch about 95% of their diets, just they also eat pocket-sized animals, such every bit freshwater mussels, frogs, crayfish, fish, and small turtles.^{[5] [6]} Muskrats follow trails they make in swamps and ponds. When the water freezes, they continue to follow their trails under the ice.

Muskrats provide an important food resource for many other animals, including mink, foxes, cougars, coyotes, wolves, lynx, bobcats, raccoons, bears, wolverines, eagles, snakes, alligators, bull sharks, and large owls, and hawks. Otters, snapping turtles, herons, bullfrogs, big fish such equally pike and largemouth bass, and predatory land reptiles such as monitor lizards volition prey on baby muskrats. Caribou, moose, and elk sometimes feed on the vegetation which makes upwards muskrat push-ups during the winter when other nutrient is scarce for them.^[25] In their introduced range in the erstwhile Soviet Matrimony, the muskrat's greatest predator is the golden jackal. They tin can be completely eradicated in shallow water bodies, and during the winter of 1948–49 in the Amu Darya (river in central Asia), muskrats constituted 12.3% of jackal faeces contents, and 71% of muskrat houses were destroyed by jackals, sixteen% of which froze and became unsuitable for muskrat occupation. Jackals also harm the muskrat industry by eating muskrats caught in traps or taking skins left out to dry out.^[26]

Muskrats, like most rodents, are prolific breeders. Females can have two or three litters a twelvemonth of six to 8 young each. The babies are born modest and hairless, and counterbalance only almost 22 g (0.78 oz). In southern environments, immature muskrats mature in vi months, while in colder northern environments, it takes about a yr. Muskrat populations appear to become through a regular blueprint of ascent and dramatic decline spread over a six- to 10-year period. Some other rodents, including famously the muskrat's shut relatives the lemmings, go through the same type of population changes.

In homo history [edit]

Native Americans have long considered the muskrat to be a very of import creature. Some predict winter snow levels by observing the size and timing of muskrat guild structure.^[27]

In several Native American cosmos myths, the muskrat dives to the lesser of the primordial sea to bring upwards the mud from which the earth is created, afterwards other animals have failed in the job.^[28]

Muskrats accept sometimes been a food resource for North Americans.^[29] In the southeastern portion of Michigan, a longstanding impunity allows Catholics to consume muskrat as their Friday penance, on Ash Wednesday, and on Lenten Fridays (when the eating of flesh, except for fish, is prohibited); this tradition dates back to at least the early 19th century.^[30] In 2019, it was reported that a series of muskrat dinners were held during Lent in the areas along the Detroit River, with up to 900 muskrats beingness consumed at a single dinner. The preparation involved the removal of the musk glands and the gutting and cleaning of the carcass, before the meat was parboiled for 4 hours with onion and garlic and finally fried.^[31]

Muskrat fur is warm, becoming prime at the beginning of December in northern Due north America. In the early 20th century, the trapping of the animal for its fur became an important industry there. During that era, the fur was specially trimmed and dyed to be sold widely in the U.s. as "Hudson seal" fur.^[32] Muskrats were introduced at that fourth dimension to Europe as a fur resource, and spread throughout northern Europe and Asia.

In some European countries, such as Belgium, France, and the Netherlands, the muskrat is considered an invasive pest, as its burrowing damages the dikes and levees on which these depression-lying countries depend for protection from flooding. In those countries, it is trapped, poisoned, and hunted to attempt to go along the population down. Muskrats likewise consume corn and other farm and garden crops growing well-nigh water bodies.^[half-dozen]

Royal Canadian Mounted Police winter hats are made from muskrat fur.^[33]

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  Muskrat trap in the Netherlands

References [edit]

1. ^ Cassola, F. (2016). "Ondatra zibethicus". IUCN Ruby Listing of Threatened Species. 2016: e.T15324A22344525. doi:ten.2305/IUCN.United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland.2016-iii.RLTS.T15324A22344525.en . Retrieved November 19, 2021.
2. ^ ^{a b} Keddy, Paul A. (2010). Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (second ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-73967-2. LCCN 2010009142. ^{[ page needed ]}
3. ^ "muskrat". Online Etymology Dictionary . Retrieved September 25, 2021.
4. ^ Hearne, Samuel (2007). A Journeying to the Northern Ocean: The Adventures of Samuel Hearne. Classics Due west. Victoria, British Columbia: TouchWood Editions. ISBN978-1-894898-sixty-7. LCCN 2007931913. ^{[ page needed ]}
5. ^ ^{a b c d e} Caras, Roger A. (1967). N American Mammals: Fur-bearing Animals of the United States and Canada. New York: Galahad Books. ISBN0-88365-072-X. ^{[ page needed ]}
6. ^ ^{a b c d e f 1000} Nowak, Ronald G.; Paradiso, John L. (1983). Walker's Mammals of the Globe. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins Academy Printing. ISBN0-8018-2525-3. LCCN 82049056. ^{[ page needed ]}
7. ^ "Muskrat". Merriam-Webster Dictionary . Retrieved October 2, 2011.
8. ^ "zivet". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating establishment membership required.)
9. ^ Lemery, Nicolas (1759). Dictionnaire universel des drogues simples (in French). Paris: L.-Ch. d'Houry. p. 942. Zibethum [...], en français, civette, est une matière liquid [...] d'une odeur forte & désagréable. [Zibethum, in French, civette, is a liquid [...] with a strong and unpleasant odour.]
10. ^ Valmont de Bomare, Jacques-Christophe (1791). Dictionnaire raisonné universel de l'histoire naturelle (in French). Lyon: Bruyset Frères. p. 205.
11. ^ "Ondatra". Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Unabridged (subscription required)
12. ^ Burnie, David; Wilson, Don E., eds. (2005). Animal: The Definitive Visual Guide to the World'south Wildlife. New York: DK Developed. ISBN0-7894-7764-v. LCCN 2006272650. ^{[ page needed ]}
13. ^ "Wildlife Directory: Muskrat". Living with Wild animals in Illinois. University of Illinois Extension. Archived from the original on May 18, 2011. Retrieved December xx, 2012.
14. ^ Lavander, Catherine. "Tardily Wintertime on Staten Island: The Crepuscular Dance of the Muskrats". Staten Island Through the Seasons. College of Staten Island. Archived from the original on February 4, 2012. Retrieved December 20, 2012.
15. ^ Fish, Frank Eastward. (1982). "Office of the compressed tail of surface pond muskrats (Ondatra zibethicus)". Journal of Mammalogy. 63 (4): 591–597. doi:10.2307/1380263. JSTOR 1380263.
16. ^ O'Neil, Ted (1949). The Muskrat in the Louisiana Coastal Marshes: A Study of the Ecological, Geological, Biological, Tidal, and Climatic Factors Governing the Production and Management of the Muskrat Industry in Louisiana. New Orleans, Louisiana: Louisiana Section of Wildlife & Fisheries. LCCN 50063347. ^{[ page needed ]}
17. ^ van der Valk, Arnold Thousand., ed. (1989). Northern Prairie Wetlands. Ames, Iowa: Iowa Country University Press. ISBN0-8138-0037-four. LCCN 88009266. ^{[ page needed ]}
18. ^ Keddy, Paul A.; Gough, Laura; Nyman, J. Andy; McFalls, Tiffany; Carter, Jacoby; Siegrist, Jack (2009). "Alligator Hunters, Pelt Traders, and Runaway Consumption of Gulf Coast Marshes: A Trophic Pour Perspective on Coastal Wetland Losses". In Silliman, Brian R.; Grosholz, Edwin D.; Bertness, Mark D. (eds.). Human Impacts on Salt Marshes: A Global Perspective. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. pp. 115–133. ISBN978-0-520-25892-1. LCCN 2008048366.
19. ^ "Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Human action 2003 – Schedule 2 Prohibited new organisms". New Zealand Legislation. Retrieved Jan 26, 2012.
20. ^ Chai, Jong-Yil; Murrell, K. Darwin; Lymbery, Alan J. (October 2005). "Fish-borne parasitic zoonoses: Condition and problems". International Periodical for Parasitology. 35 (eleven–12): 1233–1254. doi:ten.1016/j.ijpara.2005.07.013. PMID 16143336. S2CID 39281434.
21. ^ "Listing of Invasive Conflicting Species of Union concern". ec.europa.eu. European Committee. Retrieved July 27, 2021.
22. ^ "REGULATION (Eu) No 1143/2014 of the European parliament and of the council of 22 Oct 2014 on the prevention and management of the introduction and spread of invasive alien species". Official Journal of the European Union. 57 (L 317): 35–55. November 4, 2014. Retrieved September 25, 2021. {{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: url-condition (link)
23. ^ Attenborough, David (2002). The Life of Mammals. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN0-691-11324-vi. ^{[ folio needed ]}
24. ^ Attenborough, David (December 11, 2002). "Chisellers". The Life of Mammals. BBC I.
25. ^ "The Muskrat". Hamilton Harbour. McMaster University. Archived from the original on April 22, 2007.
26. ^ Heptner, V. G.; Naumov, N. P., eds. (1998). Mammals of the Soviet Union. Vol. II Office 1a, Sirenia and Carnivora (Sea Cows, Wolves and Bears). Enfield, New Hampshire: Science Publishers. ISBN1-886106-81-9. ^{[ page needed ]}
27. ^ Smith, Murray R. (May 1982). "Science for the Native Orientated Classroom". Journal of American Indian Education. Arizona Land Academy. 21 (3): 13–17. JSTOR 24397307. S2CID 151033740. Archived from the original on June 16, 2010. Retrieved January 8, 2010.
28. ^ Musgrave, Philip Fifty. (December 5, 2004). "How the Muskrat Created the World". Muskrat's Den. Archived from the original on November thirty, 2007. Retrieved November xi, 2007.
29. ^ Apicius (2012) [1977]. Vehling, Joseph Dommers (ed.). Cookery and Dining in Regal Rome. New York: Dover Publications. p. 205. ISBN978-0-486-15649-i. LCCN 77089410.
30. ^ Lukowski, Kristin (March viii, 2007). "Muskrat honey: Friday Lent delight for some OKed as fish alternative". Cosmic Online. Catholic News Service. Archived from the original on March 26, 2013. Retrieved March 31, 2013.
31. ^ Broverman, Alison (April xix, 2019). "Why Detroit'southward Catholics can swallow muskrat on Fridays during Lent". CBC Radio. Retrieved March 7, 2021.
32. ^ Ciardi, John (1983). On Words (Podcast). NPR. ; ^{[ full citation needed ]}
33. ^ "RCMP Muskrat Winter Cap". williamscully.ca. William Scully Ltd. February 9, 2005. Retrieved June ix, 2015.

External links [edit]

• "Ondatra zibethicus". Integrated Taxonomic Data Organization. Retrieved March 23, 2006.
• Everything Muskrat
• How Muskrat Created the Earth – Native American Legends

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muskrat

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