365 Urban Species. #117: Muskrat

[urbpan]

Comments

[badnoodles]

Might want to put the text before the LJ-cut for those of us who don't always click to see cottonmanifesto's lovely pictures. :)

I've never been fortunate enough to live in an area with appreciable mammalian aquatic life - Texas has too many water moccasins, and California doesn't appear to have running water.

[bunrab]

Texas has nutria - Lake Austin and Lake Travis have so many nutria that the water moccasins don't really make a dent in them. The power of rodents!

[badnoodles]

Really? Interesting. I'm a Houstonian, so I never got out to Lake Austin or Lake Travis - most of my aquatic forays were into the creek bottoms of East Texas or safely ensconced on a fishing boat on lake Conroe or Brownwood. :)

[bunrab]

I dunno about Lake Conroe, but nutria are in all the lakes that are along the Lower Colorado River, as far as I know, including all the way east to at least Katy.

[urbpan]

Thanks, posting too late at night has its drawbacks :)

I can't imagine that a water mocassin would much threaten a nutria (or otter or beaver for that matter) but it could probably take a muskrat.