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This blog is predominately about camera trapping in California. We camera trap to save our souls and to teach primary school students about biology and conservation. We will also touch on other camera trapping news and musings, sets from afar, mediocre herpetology, sucky birding, and other natural history discussions.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Rat Tales

Christian had promised that I would post more pictures from the marsh at YLR.

I am usually running behind, but those of you that know me personally, have seen that I have been extra bad and behind this past month.  The start of the quarter, taking a class for the first time in two years, on something I know almost nothing about (RNA bioinformatics), and trying to wrap up the last figure and a half for a manuscript has left little time for more fun pursuits.

So here are a couple of quick pictures of a rat from Santa Cruz. I assume it is a dusky-footed woodrat, rather than an invasive rat, but it is hard to see a lot of fur on the tail in these images. The crop in image #2 does look a little hairy on the tail, a there are brief glimpses of a lighter under-belly.  Assuming my call is correct, these are our first N. fuscipes pictures on the homebrew. Rodents weren't really a target species on this set, but I will take them!  A bit of exploring led us to a much more accessible hemlock midden, so we will have to actually target woodrats in the preserve in the future.

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Posing on the branch in the rain/fog.
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Crop of above image. Looks like it may be a male with that bulge under the base of the tail.
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Hidden a bit behind the branch
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Crop of above image. That is a looooong tail.

1 comment:

  1. The head and ears look like a wood rat. (I think it's too cute to be the "vagrant norwegian".)

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