Roof Rats Edu

Roof rats generally prefer vegetables fruits and grain.

Roof rats edu.

Roof rats often enter buildings at the roofline so be sure that all access points in the roof. These bites or scratches can cause what is known as rat bite fever or even tetanus. Their undersides are often white gray or black. Roof rats have soft and smooth fur that is typically brown with intermixed spots of black.

Roof rats are food hoarders stashing supplies of food such as seeds and nuts. Roof rats are found in several low desert city areas in arizona including the phoenix metro valley yuma and tucson areas. These rodents prefer to consume fruits sometimes referred to as the fruit rat or citrus rat and nuts although roof rats are omnivorous and will feed on almost anything available to them. Adult roof rats measure 6 8 16 20 cm when combining their head and body length.

Color ranges from black to grizzled gray to tan with a light belly. From rat bites and scratches to saliva and urine rats can cause many diseases. Adult roof rats measure 6 8 16 20 cm when combining their head and body length. The roof rat sometimes called the black rat is a common vertebrate pest in citrus and nut orchards.

In citrus it builds leaf and twig nests in trees or it can nest in debris piles thick mulch on the ground or in shallow burrows under the tree especially in hot weather. Roof rats are agile climbers with a tail longer than their head and body. But they consume to 1 ounce per day of food from various sources. Roof rats are long and thin rodents that have large eyes and ears a pointed nose and a scaly tail.

They are active year round in the low desert urban centers although they are far more active during the cooler months of winter and spring november through may. Because they must have water to survive roof rats also consume an ounce per day and will range 100 150 feet from harborages in search of water or food. Roof rats get ferocious and tend to bite or scratch when threatened or cornered. These diseases include leptospirosis salmonellosis food contamination rat bite fever murine typhus plague toxoplasmosis and trichinosis.

Roof rats pose a significant health and safety hazard as they are implicated in the transmission of a number of diseases to humans and domesticated animals. Roof rats are a health hazard being one of the oldest transmitters of diseases. Roof rats have soft and smooth fur that is typically brown with intermixed spots of black. Indoors they favor attic spaces walls false ceilings and cabinets.

They usually live and nest above ground in shrubs trees or dense vegetation. Their undersides are often white gray or black.