Muskrat Maneuvers
The Great Outdoors | April 27, 2017
By Jackie Scharfenberg, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Photo by D. Gordon E. Robertson
Welcome to the marsh, a lake, slow stream, pond, drainage ditch, or canal – a muskrat’s (Ondatra zibethicus) perfect home. We build our home in a place where the water does not freeze from top to bottom during winter, with tasty aquatic plants growing nearby. Being crepuscular, we are most active at dawn, dusk and through the night, so come spend a night with me!
Our Name
Can you guess how we got our name, muskrat? Located under our tail on, our rear, are two musk glands which excrete a smelly liquid used to communicate with other muskrats and warn intruders. We also communicate with squeaks and squeals. It’s a good thing the musk stinks, since we do not smell, see, or hear well.
Equipment to Swim
First, you must have the proper gear for spending a lot of time swimming. That includes a tapered body covered in rich, brown fur consisting of an outer layer of guard hairs and a dense, soft layer of fur that insulates us from the cold and traps air for buoyancy. You need to have small ears that close off to keep the water out and specially adapted eyes, nose, and respiratory system, all of which allow you to remain under water for 15 minutes. To move through the water, the equipment required also includes short legs ending with small front feet and big, partially webbed hind feet. Finally, you must possess a vertically flattened, long, scaly black tail that works like a rudder when swimming.
Our Food
Ready to sample the plants? Roots, leaves and stems of cattails, bulrushes, arrowhead, sweet flag and reeds that grow at the water’s edge are the perfect meal. For a special snack, I munch a few clams, crayfish, frogs, fish, small turtles, or carrion. To avoid predators I drag my food out to a special feeding platform in the water. Here’s a fun fact; I can close my mouth around my
protruding front teeth and chew underwater!
Our Home
Our home is called a lodge, which provides a place to sleep during the day, give birth to our young, keep warm in the winter, and avoid predators like mink, foxes, owls, hawks, coyotes, eagles, otters, snapping turtles, and large fish, such as muskies. To start, let’s find a gently sloping bank with an existing base of a log, branch, or cattail clump. Next, we cut plants sticking out of the water with our teeth making a pile on the base. Once the pile reaches three to five feet above the water, we burrow upward from the bottom to a point above the water level in the center of the pile to create a dry platform. If the banks are steep, we excavate burrows with two to three entrances leading to one or more chambers. People do not like us when we burrow into dikes or levees because it can cause damage and they may collapse.
Keep your eyes open next time you find yourself in a wetland and you may just spy us swimming around.
