Bandicoot Rat

bandicoot rat, any of five Asiatic species of rodents closely associated with human populations. The greater bandicoot rat (Bandicota indica) is the largest, weighing 0.5 to 1 kg (1.1 to 2.2 pounds). The shaggy, blackish brown body is 19 to 33 cm (7.5 to 13 inches) long, not including a scantily haired tail of about the same length. Greater bandicoot rats are found on the Indian subcontinent and throughout Indochina; additional populations on the Malay Peninsula, Taiwan, and Java probably represent inadvertent or intentional human introductions.

The lesser bandicoot rat (B. bengalensis) and Savile’s bandicoot rat (B. savilei) have dark brown or brownish gray body fur, weigh up to 350 grams, and measure up to 40 cm long including their brown tails. The lesser bandicoot rat is found on the Indian subcontinent, Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), and Myanmar (Burma) and has been introduced on Pinang Island off the western coast of the Malay Peninsula, northern Sumatra, eastern Java, Saudi Arabia, and Patta Island in Kenya. Savile’s bandicoot rat, on the other hand, occurs only on the mainland of Southeast Asia. These three terrestrial species are nocturnal or active at twilight, constructing burrows where they nest and where they bear their litters, which number from 2 to 18. They subsist on grains, fruit, and invertebrates and are destructive to cultivated crops. The lesser bandicoot rat, an especially aggressive burrower, has been reported to make tunnels in the concrete cellars of rice warehouses in Calcutta.

Except for one population of Savile’s bandicoot rat found in the grass beneath a teak forest in Thailand, no population of bandicoot rats has been recorded in a native habitat. Instead, bandicoot rats now inhabit cultivated land, and the lesser bandicoot rat also thrives in urban buildings. Adaptation to tropical forests was probably not a part of their evolutionary history, as forest-dwelling species of rats cannot make the transition from pristine forest to cultivated field and are rarely associated with humans. Original habitats for the bandicoot rats were probably ecologically similar to the man-made environments where they are now found, as many planted crops or fallow fields resemble native grassland, rice fields are marshlike, and orchards may approximate scrub or open forest.

Of the two species of Nesokia, the short-tailed bandicoot rat, or pest rat (N. indica), is almost the size of the lesser bandicoot rat, with soft brown fur and a short tail. Its range extends from northern Bangladesh through Central Asia to northeastern Egypt and also north of the Himalayas from Turkmenistan to western China. Inhabiting cultivated fields and natural grasslands in generally arid regions, the rats excavate extensive tunnels just below the surface and push up mounds of earth at intervals that conceal entrances and exits. They forage on bulbs and succulent roots, rarely emerging above ground, and cause extensive damage to grain crops. N. bunnii, however, is as large as the greater bandicoot rat, with thick fur and a very long tail relative to body length. An excellent swimmer, it lives in natural marshes at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in southeastern Iraq and builds nests on reed platforms above water level.

All bandicoot rats belong to the subfamily Murinae of the family Muridae within the order Rodentia.