Indian bush rat

The coffee rat ( Golunda ellioti ) is a common rodent in South Asia, which was once a feared pest of coffee.

Features

The body length is 11 to 15 centimeters, added 9 to 13 inches cock. The fur is very variable in color. There are gray, brown, yellow-brown and red-brown specimens. Also the texture of the fur is regionally very different; for some coffee lovers, there is relatively soft, bristly in others and almost prickly. In physique the coffee rat is stocky and resembles a vole.

Dissemination and lifestyle

The distribution area extends from the furthest eastern Iran via Pakistan to India and also includes Nepal and Sri Lanka. Here Coffee rats live in very different habitats such as grasslands, swamps and rain forests, but also at the edges of fields and plantations. Although they can climb, they stay mostly on the ground.

Coffee rats multiply especially where coffee is grown. They eat the buds and flowers of coffee plants. Emerged as the first coffee plantations in the late 17th century in Sri Lanka, all the crops were destroyed by these rodents soon. Ever since the coffee cultivation in Sri Lanka abandoned, the number of coffee rats has also removed again. In India, the coffee rat is still regarded as a pest of coffee, but seems to know no such proliferation as once in Sri Lanka.

System

According to Wilson & Reeder ( 2005), the rat takes coffee in the Altweltmäuse an isolated position and is therefore classified in a separate genus group of Golunda group. According to genetic studies of Lecompte et al. (2008), these animals are part of a primarily African radiation of Altweltmäuse, which also includes the Arvicanthis group and others are expected and which are summarized as Arvicanthini.