#rodentia

[great-and-small]

I am constantly thinking about this

[every-day-creechur]

Painted Tree Rat Callistomys pictus

A rodent from the state of Bahia, Brazil. The painted tree-rat is found in the Atlantic forest. It also occurs in cocoa plantations where some native trees remain. As far as known, it is nocturnal.

Endangered

image by Oberdan Nunes

[all-mammal-creechur]

Atlas Gundi Ctenodactylus gundi

This rodent is found in northern Africa on the south side of the Atlas Mountains in Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia. It lives in rocky, arid places, making its home in crevices and under boulders. It forages for leaves, stems, flowers and seeds over large distances because of the scarcity of suitable plants. It does not drink, obtaining sufficient water from its diet.

img source

[snototter]

A Brazilian guinea pig (Cavia aperea) with a pup in Sao Paolo, Brazil

by roseduda

[uncharismatic-fauna]

Uncharismatic Fact of the Day

The maned rat is a real shocker! Though it looks like they've been zapped, their electrifying hairdo is actually meant to resemble a porcupine. If that's not enough they have another trick up their sleeves: maned rats are the only rodent known to be poisonous! Maned rats will rub themselves against poison arrow trees to accumulate toxins, which makes a very poor treat for would-be predators.

(Image: A maned rat (Lophiomys imhausi) by Sara Weinstein)

[life-on-our-planet]

The Patagonian mara is a large rodent, resembling a large jackrabbit and most closely related to capybaras and guinea pigs. They're monogamous until one partner dies, but generally breeding happens in large communal dens where care of young is occasionally shared. ©

[have-you-seen-this-animal]

mayhaps a patagonian mara?

Have you seen the Patagonian mara (Dolichotis patagonum)?

I have now

Yes, in photos/videos

Yes, irl

I'm not sure

Voting ended onMay 20, 2025

This species is also known as the Patagonian cavy or Patagonian hare.

[tanoraqui]

hot take: rat kings—a bunch of rats stuck together by their tails until they supernaturally meld into some sort of monstrous hivemind entity—are a criminally underutilized trope in urban fantasy.

Modern setting? Historical setting? Rats are common throughout history and throughout the world!

I said “urban fantasy” at first, and cities are where rats famously thrive—consider a many-bodied squirming creature in the shadows below the subway tracks, genius loci in all but name, for its single-bodied servants are eyes and ears throughout the city… But there can also be country rat kings, running their own little farm fiefdoms! Shipboard rat kings, blessing or cursing their sailors as they deserve! Roaming, terrible, plague-bearing rat kings, seeking only to spread and destroy…

Rat kings can develop naturally, due to sticky materials and/or an instinct to cling to one another for winter warmth. [wikipedia] More ominously, if perhaps only apocryphally (ie like all folklore), rat kings can be created, forced by human hands.

Rat kings as metaphor for the monstrous depths to which humans may sink in dire circumstances—or of the strength and power they may find in community, in those same dire circumstances! Rat kings as metaphors for assimilation, into cults or into cultures or under that insidious social pressure against “being weird”! Body horror rat kings! Rat kings who are wise elders pooling knowledge and cultural history! Rat kings as love, which may or may not be toxic; rat kings as the raging desire to tear each other to pieces but the knowledge that you will only survive through cooperation; rat kings as multi-voiced horrors or rat kings as comedically squabbling committees… Rat kings!

Squirrel kings are a real, naturally occurring phenomenon too, btw. If you even care.