Name That Rodent! Trivia Quiz

Answer: House mouse

Mus musculus is the house mouse, the fancy mouse (when domesticated as a pet), or the laboratory mouse. This crepuscular creature eschews bright light, but it doesn't see much better in the dark than a human being, and they cannot discern as many colors. Omnivorous, house mice love fruits and grains but will even eat their own feces. When house mice live indoors and water is plentiful, there is very little female-female aggression, but if they live outdoors, female-female aggression is much higher (but then so is male-male aggression, too.)

In North America the field mouse is usually in fact the meadow vole (Microtus pennsylvanicus), while Old World field mice are true mice but in a completely different genus, Apodemus.

Answer: Rattus norvegicus

Pictured is the common brown rat, also called the Norway rat (hence 'norvegicus') and the unflattering sewer rat. 'Rat' and 'mouse' are not scientific terms, but generally rats are bigger than mice, and both are muroids (members of superfamily Muroidea). In the middle ages, Rattus norvegicus in cooler areas displaced its black cousin, Rattus rattus, which had invaded cities in Europe eons earlier, in the 1st century A.D. The black rather the brown rat spread the Black Death, however.

Neotoma cinerea is the pack rat, and Sigmodon arizonae is the Arizona cotton rat.

Answer: Groundhog

Groundhogs, also known as woodchucks, are true hibernators. They can go 150 days without eating, yet lose no more than a quarter of their bodyweight because of their lowered metabolism. During their winters' sleep, their body temperature drops from 99°F (37°C) to 37°F (2.8°C); their heart rate slows from 80 beats per minute to a mere two! The myth of groundhogs as weather prognosticators probably came from the habit of males to wake early from hibernation to look for burrows of females.

Answer: Capybara

Capybaras graze like cattle on grass, up to 8 pounds (4 kg) daily, and they also eat fruits and tree bark. Capybaras are not endangered, and until 1969 it was legal in Brazil to hunt capybaras for their skin, which was to make anything from wallets to shoes. It is still legal but regulated in Venezuela. They have been kept as pets and used as service animals for the blind.

Answer: Vole

Generally speaking voles are stouter than mice, and their tails are shorter, their heads rounder, and their ears and eyes smaller. The various species are mistaken for shrews, gophers, moles, and many other rodents and insectivores. The woodland vole (Microtus pinetorum) (pictured on the front page of this quiz) is quite monogamous, whereas its cousin the meadow vole (Microtus pennsylvanicus), also known as the field mouse, is quite promiscuous, especially the male. Vole teeth have been used to date archaeological sites, in a method known as the Vole Clock, based on the evolution of the species.

Other members of subfamily Arvicolinae include lemmings and muskrats.

Answer: Guinea pig

Guinea pigs, a/k/a cavies, live to 3-4 years in the wild, and up to seven in captivity. The species of guinea pig kept as a pet descends from, but is distinct from, the wild species that roams the mountains and grasslands of Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, and Peru. Wild guinea pigs live in burrows or rock crevices with in family groups of 5-10 members and come up in the daytime to graze on leaves, grass, and flowers.

The more submissive cavies bow their heads and make low rumbling noises at dominant cavies.

Answer: Muskrat

Muskrats (Ondatra zibethicus) live in monogamous pairs with their young. Native to North America, muskrats have been introduced to the wetlands of South America and Eurasia, including Russia. In Native American mythology, when other animals failed, the muskrat brought up the mud from the bottom of the primordial sea used to create the world. Muskrats build nests called push-ups in marshes, which sometimes have to be rebuilt each year when they are swept away in spring rains.

Whereas a beaver's tail is flat horizontally, a muskrat's tail is flat vertically, which means it can use its tail as a rudder.

A polecat is indeed pungent but it is a weasel, not a rodent.

Answer: gerbil

Gerbils have tails, whereas hamsters do not. The gerbil also has a longer snout and leaner face than the hamster, and is a little more active, and will jump. Gerbils are diurnal, whereas hamsters are nocturnal and will keep their owners up at night by running in their little hamster wheel.

Gerbils, a/k/a desert rats, live in groups in the wild, whereas hamsters are solitary. Wild gerbils live in extensive burrows in the deserts of Africa and Asia, and surface only to find food and water. Wild hamsters most likely originated from desert regions of Asia, but now inhabit semi-desert regions of every continent except Antarctica.

Answer: Lemming

Whether the brown lemming or the Norway lemming, these herbivores do not commit mass suicide despite the legend, although occasional mass migration when population rates explode can sometimes lead to death by drowning. Generally, however, they lead solitary lives in the tundra.

Answer: A nutria (coypu)

Actually, it's a coypu, from the Mapuche language of Chile and Argentina. The Myocastor coypus is also known in North America as a river rat or a nutria (although that last name is somewhat confusing, because in Spanish-speaking countries 'la nutria' is "the otter", so in Latin America they use the Mapuche name.) Italians call it 'il castorino' ("the little beaver"). Although introduced to Eurasia and Africa as fur-bearing animal, it has basically become an invasive species that does serious environmental damage. Interestingly the female coypu has nipples very high on her flanks so that her babies can feed while she is in the water.

Otters and minks, while also semi-aquatic, are not rodents but mustelids, members of the weasel family.