Reithrodon

Reithrodon auritus

The rabbits rats ( Reithrodon ) are a living in South America rodent genus of the group of the New world. They consist of two types.

These animals can reach a body length 13-20 cm and a tail length of 9-11 cm. The weight, if known, is 80 to 100 grams. The fur is gray brown on the top, the belly is white or light gray. The tail is relatively short, the ears are large and slightly inclined to the rear.

Rabbits Rats inhabit the southern South America, they live in southern Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Chile. Their habitat are grasslands such as the pampas, but also sandy coastline and fields.

You're good at digging and planting underground burrows, sometimes they also take on the armadillos and other animals. These burrows extend up to 2 meters and have chambers with up to 30 centimeters in diameter, in which a nest of grasses is built. You can both solitary life as well as in groups. Rabbits Rats are probably nocturnal and feed on grasses, roots and tubers.

In some places, the stocks have declined due to intensive agricultural use, or due to competition from introduced rabbits, overall, the animals are ( IUCN summarizes both types together) but not endangered.

There are two types, which are sometimes also combined together to form distinguished:

• Reithrodon auritus comes in almost all of Argentina and neighboring regions of Chile before including the island of Tierra del Fuego.
• Reithrodon typicus lives in the extreme south of Brazil, Uruguay and Ostargentinien.

The rabbits rats, together with the Patagonian chinchilla mice and the Andean Swamp Rat the tribes of Reithrodontini within the Sigmodontinae.