Identify the rodent I caught in my basement (in a trap)

December 7, 2015 4:35 PM

Had a rodent in our basement last winter but it never got caught in any traps. Last night I went down there and saw this guy scurry away; set a mouse/rat trap last night and turned up with him today (WARNING, don't click this if you don't want to see a dead rodent):

What kind of rat (I'm pretty sure this is not a mouse?) is this? It actually looks a bit larger in these pictures than it actually was.

I'm setting another trap or two just to make sure it was a one-time visitor and not a bigger problem.

posted by rbf1138 to Pets & Animals (14 answers total)

Response by poster: Eh, the link isn't showing up
link
posted by rbf1138 at 4:36 PM on December 7, 2015

Looks like a Norway rat to me.
posted by jkent at 4:43 PM on December 7, 2015

For scale, if that is a mouse trap (2"x4"), then it's a mouse. Rat traps look exactly the same, but are much bigger (4"x8") and heavier duty.
posted by ackptui at 4:53 PM on December 7, 2015

If anything it appears that trap is too large for the rodent you caught. As I understand it the swinging arm is supposed to catch their necks not low/mid back.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 4:58 PM on December 7, 2015

IMO, that's an immature rat. It looks a lot like the ones that enjoy munching my tomatoes in the yard.
posted by aecorwin at 4:58 PM on December 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Fairly sure that is a Norway rat - if it's a female you can tell easily by the number of pairs of nipples (rats have six, mice five).
posted by ryanshepard at 5:09 PM on December 7, 2015

It looks like a house mouse, Mus musculus. Here is a page with a picture of one caught in a trap and here is another one.
posted by Redstart at 5:10 PM on December 7, 2015

Is it a mouse trap or a rat trap? If the former, then the critter appears too small to be a rat. But I assumed it was a rat trap, in which case it appears to be a (probably immature) Norway rat. The shape of the snout and the size of the eyes make me think it's a rat.
posted by jkent at 5:18 PM on December 7, 2015

Okay, I'm changing my answer to Norway rat because I took a closer look at the trap and saw the "RAT TRAP" label between the spring and the critter and realized I had been mistaken in thinking it looked mouse-trap-sized.
posted by Redstart at 5:45 PM on December 7, 2015

As someone who has raised 8 norway rats I don't think it is a Rattus norvegicus- they are longer and slimmer - a juvie would have a much larger head to its body. Also it is deffo a female - rat balls are not something you have to look for. They're huge and obvious.
posted by srboisvert at 5:59 PM on December 7, 2015 [3 favorites]

That looks like a very normal house mouse to me. Oops though, yeah, if it's that big it's almost certainly some kind of rat. Mice are petite.

As I understand it the swinging arm is supposed to catch their necks not low/mid back.

They rarely work like they're supposed to. Take it from someone who's had to extricate a few lethally maimed mice.
posted by Miko at 7:48 PM on December 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Agreeing with primalux that it looks like a Roof Rat. Looks like you're in the right part of the country (Atlanta) to be within their range, too.
posted by scrambles at 9:10 PM on December 7, 2015

Yup, Roof Rat. We've killed 6 in the past couple of months. Keep the traps down for a while because it's probably not the only one.
posted by kamikazegopher at 9:42 PM on December 7, 2015

Yeah - 6-12 pups in a normal litter. 3 week pregnancy. ready to go again 5 days. You want to make sure you get them all and you should look for how they got in and try and seal it up. You really don't want to cohabitate with an entire a rat population.
posted by srboisvert at 6:54 AM on December 8, 2015