Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Rodentia > Thryonomyidae > Thryonomys > Thryonomys swinderianus

Thryonomys swinderianus (Cane rat)

Synonyms: Aulacodus swinderianus (homotypic)

Wikipedia Abstract

The greater cane rat (Thryonomys swinderianus) is one of two species of cane rats, a small family of African hystricognath rodents. The cane rat lives by reed-beds and riverbanks in Sub-Saharan Africa. Cane rats can grow to nearly 2 ft (0.61 m) in length and weigh a little less than 19 lb (8.6 kg). It has rounded ears, a short nose, and coarse bristly hair. Its forefeet are smaller than its hind feet, each with three toes.
View Wikipedia Record: Thryonomys swinderianus

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
6
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
30
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 13.95
EDGE Score: 2.7
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  14.551 lbs (6.60 kg)
Birth Weight [1]  129 grams
Diet [2]  Frugivore, Granivore, Herbivore
Diet - Fruit [2]  10 %
Diet - Plants [2]  80 %
Diet - Seeds [2]  10 %
Forages - Ground [2]  100 %
Female Maturity [1]  1 year
Male Maturity [1]  1 year
Gestation [1]  5 months 5 days
Litter Size [1]  4
Litters / Year [1]  2
Maximum Longevity [1]  5 years
Nocturnal [3]  Yes
Snout to Vent Length [4]  24 inches (61 cm)
Weaning [1]  30 days

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Coastal Forests of Eastern Africa Kenya, Mozambique, Somalia, Tanzania No
Eastern Afromontane Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, Uganda, Yemen, Zimbabwe No
Guinean Forests of West Africa Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, São Tomé and Príncipe, Sierra Leone, Togo No
Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland No

Predators

Canis mesomelas (Black-backed Jackal)[5]
Panthera pardus (Leopard)[6]

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Ctenocephalides felis strongylus[7]

Range Map

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 2Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 3Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
♦ 4Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 5Canis mesomelas, Lyle R. Walton and Damien O. Joly, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 715, pp. 1–9 (2003)
♦ 6Predator–prey size relationships in an African large-mammal food web, Norman Owen-Smith and M. G. L. Mills, Journal of Animal Ecology Volume 77, Issue 1, Pages 173-183
♦ 7International Flea Database
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0