Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Rodentia > Muridae > Otomys > Otomys irroratus

Otomys irroratus (vlei rat)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

The southern African vlei rat (Otomys irroratus) is a species of rodent in the Otomys genus ("vlei rats") of the family Muridae. This is the type species of the genus.The range extends from the far South Western Cape of South Africa, around the southern and eastern coast and adjacent interior, to subtropical regions in southern Natal. This part of its range includes Lesotho. Further north it no longer occurs around the actual coast. Inland however, its range extends north to tropical areas, nearly to the northern boundary of the Transvaal, including parts of Swaziland. An apparently isolated population occurs still further north in tropical eastern Zimbabwe and adjacent Mozambique.Its habitats include temperate low-altitude swamps and grassland, and subtropical and tropical high-altitude g
View Wikipedia Record: Otomys irroratus

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
2
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
18
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 5.72
EDGE Score: 1.91
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  147 grams
Birth Weight [1]  15 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]  82 days
Male Maturity [1]  3 months 1 day
Gestation [1]  40 days
Litter Size [1]  2
Litters / Year [1]  4
Maximum Longevity [3]  2 years
Snout to Vent Length [3]  7 inches (19 cm)
Weaning [1]  13 days

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Cape Floristic Region South Africa No
Eastern Afromontane Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, Uganda, Yemen, Zimbabwe No
Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland No
Succulent Karoo Namibia, South Africa No

Predators

Consumers

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
♦ 3Nathan 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
♦ 4DIET AND CONSERVATION STATUS OF CAPE CLAWLESS OTTERS IN EASTERN ZIMBABWE, J. R. A. BUTLER and J. T. DU TOIT, IUCN Otter Spec. Group Bull. 11 1995
♦ 5Otomys irroratus, G. Bronner, S. Gordon, and J. Meester, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 308, pp. 1-6 (1988)
♦ 6del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
♦ 7Canis mesomelas, Lyle R. Walton and Damien O. Joly, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 715, pp. 1–9 (2003)
♦ 8Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
♦ 9International 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