Thanks to Bill Wilson for the heads up on the latest mammalian rediscovery -- the red-crested tree rat, a handsome rodent with the elegant moniker of Santamartamys rufodorsalis.
Somehow I doubt that mammalogists have been combing the forests of Colombia for the past 113 years searching for Santamartamys, but that doesn't detract from the excitement of the find.
There are quite a few species in Latin America known from a handful of specimens collected long ago, and it's always good news to find they are still orbiting through space with the rest of us.
About Me
- Camera Trap Codger
- Native Californian, biologist, wildlife conservation consultant, retired Smithsonian scientist, father of two daughters, grandfather of four. INTJ. Believes nature is infinitely more interesting than shopping malls. Born 100 years too late.
Showing posts with label climbing rats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label climbing rats. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
A ratcatcher's hound
A couple weeks ago, Patrick Burns of Terrierman's Daily Dose kindly mentioned Camera Trap Codger. I want to return the favor, Pat, so here's an experience with rat hounds.
This was back in 1979 when I was searching for the little known "giant civet" or musang choklat of Sulawesi (Macrogalidia musschenbroekii). We were living with a farmer's family in a village named Liberia. It was a transmigrated community of Javanese, and being the best rice paddy engineers in the world, they had completely terraced the slopes leading to the far ridges of forest and Gunung Ambang where the mysterious musang lived. I know this sounds like J. Peterman on the Seinfeld re-runs, but it's true.
My "musang brothers" were Jack West, the young multilingual general curator of the Ragunan Zoo in Jakarta, and a perpetually smiling bumpkin named Ribowo, who was the local warden. Though several years my junior, Jack took his charge as my protector very seriously. Ribowo was our native guide, known affectionately to the locals.
It didn't take long for the word to get out that we were trapping rats, which really doesn't raise any eyebrows in an Indonesian village, and we were told that the village had its own ratcatcher, with whom we would have a lot in common.
His name was Mengko; he farmed like everyone else, and he supplemented his income by moonlighting as a ratcatcher. Roasted rats were a delicacy in Liberia. [Note: Southeast Asia has climbing rats, giant rats, water rats, and predaceous rats, to mention just a few, and they are all referred to "tikus" (you can pronounce that teekoos). I was told by Guy Musser that Sulawesi is the epicenter of rat diversity.]
The next morning we met Mengko with a cigarette stuck to his lip. He wore a pointy little cap like the Pied Piper, and had a quiet air of confidence. In tow were his 14-year-old apprentice with a gunny sack, and his pale bridled rat hound, which looked like it didn't have the strength to catch a cockroach. Between the sorry looking dog and these guys wearing garish sport shirts, I was starting to have doubts.
"How in the hell is he going to get rats?" I stammered. "He doesn't have any equipment!"
Jack explained that the equipment -- a shovel blade, a steel rod, and a parang (=machete) --was in the gunny sack, and the dog would dig up the burrows.
Roiiiight!!! I thought with sarcastic British accent. I couldn't wait to see them use a shovel without a handle. And that listless dog that strained to crap every 50 yards? We'd be lucky if it didn't die in the next half hour.
The hunting ground, a few kilometers from the village was an overgrown coffee plantation that dated back to the Dutch. The rats burrowed among the roots.
Mengko located a promising burrow with the rod, fashioned a handle for the shovel with the parang, cleared the ground vegetation, and started digging. The pooch buried its head in the burrow, snorted deeply, then took a break to squat and strain. The scenario was repeated for an hour.
Suddenly there was a magical transformation. Maybe it was the smell of rat. Whatever it was, it breathed life into the dog. Like a bionic badger a stream of soil shot out between its hind legs, and in a minute it was almost out of sight.
Obviously, the poor creature expected a meal of rat guts, it's usual reward, but we wanted those rats alive. Mengko dragged it from the hole, and caught the rat by hand. Still, the dog worked for several hours, energized each time by the smell of frightened rat, until we had a fine collection.
Then it followed us back to the village on an empty stomach.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Woodrat tricks codger (continued)
Wood rat couldn’t cut the mustard when it came to climbing down a vertical quarter-inch cord. But could he walk across the same cord if it were horizontal? I pulled a quarter-inch cord taut like a tight rope, and repaired the vertical cord that he had almost chewed through. The next morning the vertical cord was dangling and the bait cup was gone. The pictures tell the rest of the story.
He had fed intermittently for a half hour, and cut the bait free in less than a half minute. I revised my thinking. Making the first cut beneath the food wasn’t so dumb after all. If he cut the rope above the bait it could drop into a thicket below, and that would mean a lot more work. Better to cut it free and haul it home in one set of actions.
There was no sign of the cap that held the peanut butter. He must have cached it in his nest for bedtime snacking. I repaired the set up, and the next night was a repeat performance.
Now that wood rat was a habitual visitor, I expected he would go to any length to reach the reward. So I replaced the 1/4" cord with a 1/8th" nylon cord. I figured a really good climber would hang-crawl along the string to reach the feeding station.
Wood rat would have no part of it. On the next two nights he visited the access route as many as 8 times a night, but would stop where the 1/4" line was knotted to the 1/8" line. There he would look longingly in the direction of the bait. It seemed that wood rat wouldn't walk the line if it was less than a quarter-inch thick.
So far, so good. But now I wondered . . . was wood rat capable of "chimney stemming", — that’s what rock climbers do when they brace themselves and "inchworm" between two parallel walls. I wired a 26" length of 2" PVC pipe, the chimney, between an overhead branch and the platform. The only way he could reach peanut-butter-land, I thought, was to go down the tube. I set one camera trap to monitor the tube entrance, and another to monitor the bait station below.
He visited the bait station for two nights, and I assumed that he was chimney stemming.
But a little knowledge can be dangerous. The picture of the hind-foot hooked over the twig showed that he can't rotate his ankles and cling like a squirrel. Therefore, I thought he was testing it in this picture. He couldn't possibly go down the outside of the tube head-first. He had to be going down inside the tube.
A simple test could prove it. I stuffed an old sock--yes it was clean--into the entrance of the tube, predicting that he would either pull it out and proceed down the tube as usual, or have to forego dining at the bait station.
When I looked at the pictures the next morning, I realized the rodent had tricked me.
He didn't remove the sock, but there he was on the platform eating the peanut butter. Damn! My design was flawed. I had allowed him two options--go up the post or come down the tube. Not good experimental design. My early assumption that he couldn't climb the 3/4" aluminum post had been wrong. Now I was wondering if he ever came down the tube at all--inside or outside.
So I removed the tube to see if he could climb the post.
Surprise! The next morning's pictures showed the rat on the platform.
He could have gotten there only by jumping, levitating, or shimmying up the post. There were no climbing action shots, but there was this picture of him on the verge of descending with a mouthful of peanut butter. I had the feeling I was finally getting closer to the truth.
If you think you can bear any more of this, stay tuned for the final episode.
He had fed intermittently for a half hour, and cut the bait free in less than a half minute. I revised my thinking. Making the first cut beneath the food wasn’t so dumb after all. If he cut the rope above the bait it could drop into a thicket below, and that would mean a lot more work. Better to cut it free and haul it home in one set of actions.
There was no sign of the cap that held the peanut butter. He must have cached it in his nest for bedtime snacking. I repaired the set up, and the next night was a repeat performance.
Now that wood rat was a habitual visitor, I expected he would go to any length to reach the reward. So I replaced the 1/4" cord with a 1/8th" nylon cord. I figured a really good climber would hang-crawl along the string to reach the feeding station.
Wood rat would have no part of it. On the next two nights he visited the access route as many as 8 times a night, but would stop where the 1/4" line was knotted to the 1/8" line. There he would look longingly in the direction of the bait. It seemed that wood rat wouldn't walk the line if it was less than a quarter-inch thick.
So far, so good. But now I wondered . . . was wood rat capable of "chimney stemming", — that’s what rock climbers do when they brace themselves and "inchworm" between two parallel walls. I wired a 26" length of 2" PVC pipe, the chimney, between an overhead branch and the platform. The only way he could reach peanut-butter-land, I thought, was to go down the tube. I set one camera trap to monitor the tube entrance, and another to monitor the bait station below.
He visited the bait station for two nights, and I assumed that he was chimney stemming.
But a little knowledge can be dangerous. The picture of the hind-foot hooked over the twig showed that he can't rotate his ankles and cling like a squirrel. Therefore, I thought he was testing it in this picture. He couldn't possibly go down the outside of the tube head-first. He had to be going down inside the tube.
A simple test could prove it. I stuffed an old sock--yes it was clean--into the entrance of the tube, predicting that he would either pull it out and proceed down the tube as usual, or have to forego dining at the bait station.
When I looked at the pictures the next morning, I realized the rodent had tricked me.
He didn't remove the sock, but there he was on the platform eating the peanut butter. Damn! My design was flawed. I had allowed him two options--go up the post or come down the tube. Not good experimental design. My early assumption that he couldn't climb the 3/4" aluminum post had been wrong. Now I was wondering if he ever came down the tube at all--inside or outside.
So I removed the tube to see if he could climb the post.
Surprise! The next morning's pictures showed the rat on the platform.
He could have gotten there only by jumping, levitating, or shimmying up the post. There were no climbing action shots, but there was this picture of him on the verge of descending with a mouthful of peanut butter. I had the feeling I was finally getting closer to the truth.
If you think you can bear any more of this, stay tuned for the final episode.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Wood rat accepts the challenge
Okay class, today we're going to see how the scientific method can be used to explore an important and unanswered question: how well do dusky-footed wood rats climb?
The irrepressible mammalogist Jack Cranford reported that radio-collared wood rats spent 40% of their time above ground foraging in shrubs and trees, and the late E. H. Vestal described a worried wood rat leaping three and a half feet—a rather squirrel-like achievement. So, it's fair to ask: is Neotoma fuscipes a confident and acrobatic climber? Or a cautious climber? It was time to subject wood rat to some climbing trials and put the camera traps to good use.
Where to begin? Go to the literature! Linsdale and Tevis, in their book "The dusky-footed wood rat" reported a rat climbing a poison oak vine. Poison oak vines come in various thicknesses, but cutting them for experiments can have uncomfortable consequences. So my first question was: can wood rat climb a 3/4" manila rope?
I tied the rope to an overhead branch of oak, and moored the other end to a log on the ground. Only by climbing down or shimmying up could woodrat reach the peanut butter feeding station in the middle of the rope. I hoped for a picture of him clinging to the line like a mountaineer.
Wood rat accepted the rope-climbing challenge, and cleaned up the peanut butter the first night. In fact, he made several visits. I assumed that he descended the rope from the overhead branch. It seemed easier than surmounting the feeding platform. Whatever he did, he did it quickly, because there wasn't a single picture of him coming or going.
Time to "raise the bar". The next night I replaced the vertical rope with a 1/4" cotton clothesline. I also replaced the plywood platform with a bait cup strung on the cord.
No longer could he sit and dine.
He would have to feed while on the line.
Ahah! Two nights passed with nary an image.
Was the 1/4" line beyond his limits?
Or was woodrat digesting in the stomach of a fox or bobcat? It was too easy to discover his limitations, and I wondered whether I had somehow exposed him to danger. I mean, like...gee whiz...maybe he attracted a predator while scurrying about trying to reach the peanut butter.
Okay, let's make it easier for the guy. On night 4, I used the 3/4" rope to make a bridge. All he had to do was walk across the rope to the clothesline where the peanut butter was waiting.
And that's exactly what he did. The next morning's photos showed woodrat alive and well, and eating peanut butter like there was no tomorrow. I could only conclude that he was no match for his crazy ninja Malaysian relatives (see the previous blog, mates). Climbing the vertical clothesline (1/4") was beyond his ability. He seemed a little resentful tugging at the cap and chewing the line, but he wasn't clever enough to cut the cord above the bait. The unfinished meal was still there. I felt a little disappointed and smug at the same time. But all that was to change. Wood rat had some tricks up his sleeve. (Stay tuned for the next episode).
REFERENCES
Cranford, J.A. 1977. Home range and habitat utilization by Neotoma fuscipes as determined by radiotelemetry. Journal of Mammalogy 58(2):165-172.
Linsdale, J.M. and L.P.Tevis. 1951. The dusky-footed wood rat. University of California Press, Berkeley.
Vestal, E.H. 1938. Biotic relations of the wood rat in the Berkeley Hills. Journal of Mammalogy 19:1-36.
The irrepressible mammalogist Jack Cranford reported that radio-collared wood rats spent 40% of their time above ground foraging in shrubs and trees, and the late E. H. Vestal described a worried wood rat leaping three and a half feet—a rather squirrel-like achievement. So, it's fair to ask: is Neotoma fuscipes a confident and acrobatic climber? Or a cautious climber? It was time to subject wood rat to some climbing trials and put the camera traps to good use.
Where to begin? Go to the literature! Linsdale and Tevis, in their book "The dusky-footed wood rat" reported a rat climbing a poison oak vine. Poison oak vines come in various thicknesses, but cutting them for experiments can have uncomfortable consequences. So my first question was: can wood rat climb a 3/4" manila rope?
I tied the rope to an overhead branch of oak, and moored the other end to a log on the ground. Only by climbing down or shimmying up could woodrat reach the peanut butter feeding station in the middle of the rope. I hoped for a picture of him clinging to the line like a mountaineer.
Wood rat accepted the rope-climbing challenge, and cleaned up the peanut butter the first night. In fact, he made several visits. I assumed that he descended the rope from the overhead branch. It seemed easier than surmounting the feeding platform. Whatever he did, he did it quickly, because there wasn't a single picture of him coming or going.
Time to "raise the bar". The next night I replaced the vertical rope with a 1/4" cotton clothesline. I also replaced the plywood platform with a bait cup strung on the cord.
No longer could he sit and dine.
He would have to feed while on the line.
Ahah! Two nights passed with nary an image.
Was the 1/4" line beyond his limits?
Or was woodrat digesting in the stomach of a fox or bobcat? It was too easy to discover his limitations, and I wondered whether I had somehow exposed him to danger. I mean, like...gee whiz...maybe he attracted a predator while scurrying about trying to reach the peanut butter.
Okay, let's make it easier for the guy. On night 4, I used the 3/4" rope to make a bridge. All he had to do was walk across the rope to the clothesline where the peanut butter was waiting.
And that's exactly what he did. The next morning's photos showed woodrat alive and well, and eating peanut butter like there was no tomorrow. I could only conclude that he was no match for his crazy ninja Malaysian relatives (see the previous blog, mates). Climbing the vertical clothesline (1/4") was beyond his ability. He seemed a little resentful tugging at the cap and chewing the line, but he wasn't clever enough to cut the cord above the bait. The unfinished meal was still there. I felt a little disappointed and smug at the same time. But all that was to change. Wood rat had some tricks up his sleeve. (Stay tuned for the next episode).
REFERENCES
Cranford, J.A. 1977. Home range and habitat utilization by Neotoma fuscipes as determined by radiotelemetry. Journal of Mammalogy 58(2):165-172.
Linsdale, J.M. and L.P.Tevis. 1951. The dusky-footed wood rat. University of California Press, Berkeley.
Vestal, E.H. 1938. Biotic relations of the wood rat in the Berkeley Hills. Journal of Mammalogy 19:1-36.
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Ninja rats of the Bumbun
A studly wood rat with an addiction to peanut butter lives about 50 yards from the house. For the past week I’ve put him through a series of climbing trials. But before I post that blog I want to share a deep secret—my fascination with the climbing ability of rats. It started the night of October 21, 1991 in peninsular Malaysia’s national park—Taman Negara.
We had decided to sleep 30 feet above the jungle in the "Bumbun" ("Boomboom" is close enough)—a wildlife observation blind. The elevated cabin was big enough to sleep 12 people, and rested solidly on massive posts. It looked like a titan gazing over a clearing in the jungle, where the park staff had created a salt lick to attract wildlife.
That morning at park headquarters we bought fried chicken and cheese sandwiches for the overnight outing. As the young lady of the kitchen staff handed us the bags she advised us to hang them from the strings on the Bumbun’s rafters.
"Huh?" I responded.
"Sometimes a rat will eat your lunch", she explained.
"Rat like fried chicken very much. Hang bag on string, they can’t get it. No problem", she giggled, "okay?".
When we climbed into the bumbun that afternoon we didn’t need a shower. A torrential downpour had taken care of that, so we changed into dry clothes, and prepared for a night of wildlife observation. The park had provided engaging reading material—a log for tourists to record their natural history observations.
Most of the entries were tales of red-eyed wayfarers defending their food bags against a determined army of rats. The rodents came in various sizes, but we learned they all had uncanny abilities to invade the bags of food. There was enough material there for a Ph. D. thesis and a Stephen King novel. I knew that peninsular Malaysia boasted of having at least 20 species of rats, and the log’s colorful descriptions assured us we would see at least a few of them up close and personal.
We ate our modest meal, carefully wrapped the remains for tomorrow’s breakfast, and hung our bags from the rafters. Then it was dark. I tape recorded night sounds, and periodically we saw movement at the salt lick, but the beam of our flashlights proved we were imagining things. When my wife and I climbed into our bunks, we promised to wake each other up should the rats make an appearance.
At 2:00 AM, asleep and enfolded in the moist warmth of the tropical night, I felt something on my foot. With one tremendous power-kick I tried to launch the little bugger into outer space.
"Do you know what you just did?" came my wife’s voice in the darkness.
"I got him, didn’t I?"
"No, you almost kicked me in the face. The rats are here, but I couldn’t wake you up."
And there they were in the beam of the flashlight—not the scrofulous imposters described in the log, but nimble fellows, gliding along the rafters with their russet coats, white bellies, and blueberry eyes. There were two species. One had a tail as long as the head and body. The other had a noticeably longer tail. But they were no ordinary rats. These rafter-runners were pumped up like ninjas. The smell of the cheese sandwiches and fried chicken was driving them crazy. Their speedy peregrinations seemed to be a race to see who would be first to triangulate the food by scent.
What we failed to notice was that one of them had already gotten into the food bag, which was vibrating with its frenzied feeding. I climbed down from the bunk and gave the bag a flat-handed smack. Waaaaah! Such reflexes and coordination! The nibbler literally shot up the string like a yo-yo. That's not something many rats can do. These guys were built for climbing.
The ninja rats were rash and reckless, and though we defended our lunch bag, it was impossible to fend off "Yo-yo" and his kin. It was their turf, and we were outnumbered. By 5:00 AM we were tired of the game, and the rats were full of chicken, cheese, and bread. It was time for bed, they had earned their keep, and I knew something I didn't know before--some rats are damn good climbers.
We had decided to sleep 30 feet above the jungle in the "Bumbun" ("Boomboom" is close enough)—a wildlife observation blind. The elevated cabin was big enough to sleep 12 people, and rested solidly on massive posts. It looked like a titan gazing over a clearing in the jungle, where the park staff had created a salt lick to attract wildlife.
That morning at park headquarters we bought fried chicken and cheese sandwiches for the overnight outing. As the young lady of the kitchen staff handed us the bags she advised us to hang them from the strings on the Bumbun’s rafters.
"Huh?" I responded.
"Sometimes a rat will eat your lunch", she explained.
"Rat like fried chicken very much. Hang bag on string, they can’t get it. No problem", she giggled, "okay?".
When we climbed into the bumbun that afternoon we didn’t need a shower. A torrential downpour had taken care of that, so we changed into dry clothes, and prepared for a night of wildlife observation. The park had provided engaging reading material—a log for tourists to record their natural history observations.
Most of the entries were tales of red-eyed wayfarers defending their food bags against a determined army of rats. The rodents came in various sizes, but we learned they all had uncanny abilities to invade the bags of food. There was enough material there for a Ph. D. thesis and a Stephen King novel. I knew that peninsular Malaysia boasted of having at least 20 species of rats, and the log’s colorful descriptions assured us we would see at least a few of them up close and personal.
We ate our modest meal, carefully wrapped the remains for tomorrow’s breakfast, and hung our bags from the rafters. Then it was dark. I tape recorded night sounds, and periodically we saw movement at the salt lick, but the beam of our flashlights proved we were imagining things. When my wife and I climbed into our bunks, we promised to wake each other up should the rats make an appearance.
At 2:00 AM, asleep and enfolded in the moist warmth of the tropical night, I felt something on my foot. With one tremendous power-kick I tried to launch the little bugger into outer space.
"Do you know what you just did?" came my wife’s voice in the darkness.
"I got him, didn’t I?"
"No, you almost kicked me in the face. The rats are here, but I couldn’t wake you up."
And there they were in the beam of the flashlight—not the scrofulous imposters described in the log, but nimble fellows, gliding along the rafters with their russet coats, white bellies, and blueberry eyes. There were two species. One had a tail as long as the head and body. The other had a noticeably longer tail. But they were no ordinary rats. These rafter-runners were pumped up like ninjas. The smell of the cheese sandwiches and fried chicken was driving them crazy. Their speedy peregrinations seemed to be a race to see who would be first to triangulate the food by scent.
What we failed to notice was that one of them had already gotten into the food bag, which was vibrating with its frenzied feeding. I climbed down from the bunk and gave the bag a flat-handed smack. Waaaaah! Such reflexes and coordination! The nibbler literally shot up the string like a yo-yo. That's not something many rats can do. These guys were built for climbing.
The ninja rats were rash and reckless, and though we defended our lunch bag, it was impossible to fend off "Yo-yo" and his kin. It was their turf, and we were outnumbered. By 5:00 AM we were tired of the game, and the rats were full of chicken, cheese, and bread. It was time for bed, they had earned their keep, and I knew something I didn't know before--some rats are damn good climbers.
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