Dassie rat

Dassie ( Petromus typicus )

The rock rat ( Petromus typicus ) is a rodent species. She has no immediate living relatives and is in a family, Petromuridae, filed; also with the rats ( genus Rattus ) it is not closely related.

Dissemination

Rock rats inhabit dry, rocky areas in southern Africa; they live in southern Angola, Namibia and northwestern South Africa.

Description

Rock rats have a certain similarity with croissants, but do not have a bushy tail. Her skull is flattened, the ears are small and round. They have short limbs with four toes on the front feet and five on the hind paws. Your spine is very flexible, allowing them to connect to the flat skull to crawl into narrow crevices. Their coat has a shape adapted to their rocky habitat from cryptic on the top is gray -brown, the underside yellowish- brown. The coat grows in clusters of three to five hairs, resulting in a bristly appearance, actually is the coat but soft and silky. Rock rats reach a body length 14-20 cm, a tail length of 13-18 centimeters and a weight of 100 to 300 grams.

Way of life

Habitat of the rock rats are dry areas in the hills or mountains that are often laced with rock crevices. These serve them as a shelter, mainly in the morning and late afternoon they come out to forage or bask in the sun. They but be careful, as often as possible concealed under overhanging rocks remain to be not seen of birds of prey, their main predators. Your body is more adapted to a running as a jumping locomotion, but sometimes they bounce between the rocks, where they similarly extend their body the flying squirrel.

Rock rats live alone or in pairs. One study found 15 copies in a six -acre area. They often live in the same habitat as hyrax, by its smaller size, this results in no competition for protective crevices.

Food

Rock rats are herbivores, their diet includes grasses, seeds and berries.

Reproduction

Mating takes place in early summer (November to December), after a roughly three -month gestation period one to three cubs are born. These are hairy and relatively well developed. Females have three pairs of teats, which are on the sides of the body at the level of the shoulder blades, so will the suckling allows in narrow crevices. With about two weeks, the boys take the first solid food, with three weeks, they are weaned. About the life expectancy is not known.

Rock rats and humans

Due to their secluded, sparsely populated habitat rocks rats rarely come into contact with people. They are considered common and do not belong to the endangered species.

System

Rock rats are within the rodents to the porcupine relatives ( Hystricomorpha ), their closest relatives are the cane rats. Fossil ancestors of these animals have been known since the Oligocene, all finds are restricted to Africa.