Mexican Woodrat
Neotoma mexicana
Summary 2
The Mexican woodrat (Neotoma mexicana) is a medium-sized rat occurring in the United States from Utah and Colorado south through New Mexico and parts of Arizona and Trans-Pecos Texas. Its range continues south in the highlands to Honduras. Although occurring at lower elevations during the Pleistocene, it generally is limited now to highlands supporting open coniferous forests or woodlands. In a few places, it occurs in lower country where lava or boulder fields occur; presumably the...
Description 3
Mexican Woodrats inhabits rocky outcrops, cliffs, and slopes, primarily in montane regions from northern Colorado to Honduras. They eat a wide variety of leaves, seeds, and berries, and sometimes store large amounts of food. They are medium-sized, grayish-brown woodrats with white underparts, bushy tails, and gray throat hairs. Owls, foxes, coyotes, bobcats, weasels, and rattlesnakes all prey on them. Many Mexican Woodrat populations are separate from each other (disjunct), because patches of suitable habitat are separated from each other by terrain the Woodrat cannot cross. For example, Woodrats living on one mountaintop may remain isolated from Woodrats on another. Fossils of this species that are more than 10,000 years old have been found in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico.
Links:
Mammal Species of the World
Click here for The American Society of Mammalogists species account
Sources and Credits
- (c) Juan Cruzado Cortés, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), uploaded by Juan Cruzado Cortés
- (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neotoma_mexicana
- (c) Smithsonian Institution, some rights reserved (CC BY), http://eol.org/data_objects/6625233
