Christmas Island Rat
| Christmas Island Rat | ||||||||||||
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Drawing from A monograph of Christmas Island |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Rattus nativitatis | ||||||||||||
| ( Thomas , 1889) |
The Christmas Island rat ( Rattus nativitatis ) is an extinct species of rat from Christmas Island .
description
The Christmas Island rat reached a length of 42 centimeters. It had strong paws with large claws that were good for digging. There was a hard layer of fat on the back that was about two centimeters thick. The body was colored dark brown. The short tail was dark brown, thick and almost bare. It showed a triangular scale pattern.
Occurrence and habitat
The Christmas Island rat inhabited the dense forests in the higher regions of Christmas Island.
Way of life and food
The Christmas Island Rat appeared in small groups . It was nocturnal and spent the day under the roots of trees, fallen hollow tree trunks or in half-rotted sago palms . It fed on plants, especially fruits and young saplings. The reproduction period extended over the whole year. Unlike the Maclear rat , it did not climb trees.
die out
The reason for their extinction was believed to be the same as that of the Maclear rat. After mine workers settled on Christmas Island in the 1890s because of the rich phosphate deposits, the house rat ( Rattus rattus ) was introduced to the island. The rats spread pathogens such as trypanosomes that put an end to the endemic rat species. In 1902/1903 a company doctor could only make out sick animals that could even be observed in their agony during the day. The Christmas Island rat has been considered extinct since 1903.
literature
- Edwin Antonius: Lexicon of extinct birds and mammals. (A list of destroyed species and subspecies according to systematic and taxonomic criteria. With scientific, German, English and French names). = Lexicon of the wild bird and mammal forms extirpated directly or indirectly by the "modern human civilization" = Dictionary of the wild bird and mammal forms extirpated directly or indirectly by the "modern human civilization". = Dictionnaire des formes sauvages d'oiseaux et mammifères extirpés directement ou indirectement par la “civilization humaine moderne” . Natur und Tier-Verlag, Münster 2003, ISBN 3-931587-76-2 .
- Walton Beacham (Ed.): World Wildlife Fund Guide to Extinct Species of Modern Times. Volume 1: Birds of the Pacific islands and North America. Plants of the Hawaiian islands. Fishes of North America. Mammals of North and South Africa. Mammals of North America and the Atlantic islands. Beacham Publishing, Osprey FL 1997, ISBN 0-933833-40-7 .
- David Day: The Doomsday Book of Animals. A Natural History of Vanished Species . Viking Press, New York NY 1981, ISBN 0-670-27987-0 .
- Tim Flannery, Peter Schouten: A Gap in Nature. Discovering the World's Extinct Animals. Atlantic Monthly Press, New York NY 2001, ISBN 0-87113-797-6 .
- Kelly B. Wyatt, Paula F. Campos, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, Sergios-Orestis Kolokotronis, Wayne H. Hynes, Rob DeSalle, Peter Daszak, Ross DE MacPhee, Alex D. Greenwood: Historical Mammal Extinction on Christmas Island (Indian Ocean) Correlates with Introduced Infectious Disease. In: PLoS one. Vol. 3, No. 11, 2008, e3602, doi : 10.1371 / journal.pone.0003602 (full text).
Web links
- Rattus nativitatis in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2006. Posted by: Baillie, 1996. Retrieved on 22 May of 2007.