hello little animal

[solarbird]

One of the native rodentia of Cascadia is something called the mountain beaver, which is a silly name as it neither lives in mountains nor is a beaver. But it does look a little bit like one. We see them around the house occasionally; they're harmless, and tend to hide.

Anyway, we have this retaining wall behind our built-into-the-hillside-cliff house, and at the bottom of that, there's a planter, and somehow one of these little guys got into it and spent about an hour trying to find a way out that didn't involve being exposed to the daylight:


AAAGH I'M GONNA DIE

The cats, of course, loved this action. Eventualy, it made a break for it (video kinda fuzzy):

And then I discovered it has burrowed into the rockery! (Video not at all fuzzy; sorry about the tea-timer noise):

So that was fun. And now I go back to doing the laundry and some client work.

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The Aristocrat

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Comments

[janne.livejournal.com]

Awww! Cute little thing :)

[solarbird]

The other ones I've seen around here have been larger; I wonder whether this one is a juvenile, or small for some other reason.

[spazzkat.livejournal.com]

That's a Nutria.

It's like the worst parts of a beaver and a rat combined.

ETA: Oh wait.. they're not the same thing. Nutria's have a long ratty tail that this guy doesn't have.

[solarbird]

Yeah, the short tail is a key identifying element. Also the back legs are different, and the head shape a bit different too. And no orange teeth, tho' you can't see that in this photo.

[kvogel.livejournal.com]

I've seen Mountain Beavers in Seward Park. Neat to see better views. Maybe a juvi, I think of them having thicker and more uniform coats(?)
Nutria are also aquatic and have prominate orange teeth.

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

How do there continue to be mammals locally that I've never heard of? It's disconcerting (but cute). How big is this creature?

[solarbird]

I'm really not sure. This one was smaller than most of the ones I've seen, making me think it's a juvenile - maybe 20cm tops? The others I've seen have looked like this but have been noticeably bigger.