What on earth is this creature?
 

We live in Western Oregon, about one hour East of the beach. A lady out by us found this in her driveway and it walked right up to her and let her pick it up. She put it in her dog pen and started calling around to see if someone lost a pet ____? During the night, it chewed a hole in the pen and disappeared.

She said that it was the size of a guinea pig. I assume that its some wild animal that someone tamed? It has no tail.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i2.../rodent003.jpg

Hamster?

This looks a little bit like the mountain beaver? I think that is what they said it was. Up in the olympic mountains they have them. I have never seen one until a few weeks ago. They are not the ones that live in water. They have no tails.
http://images.google.com/images?clie...tain+beaver&um
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Beaver

The first link is a ton of good pictures. If it doesn't come out right, just google mountain beavers. Click on image results. The second link is a wikipedia article about mountain beavers.

Cindyc.

The first thought that came to mind was muskrat, but I don't see a tail.

Looks like an (uuggghh!) rat to me. Did anybody look close enough to decide if the tail was gone, or if it didn't seem to have one? My guide to mammals says the "mountain beaver" is the size of a small house cat. I'll keep reading.... Sue

I agree with Mountain Beaver, I have seen them in the Olympics but it's been quite a while, the lack of a tail is the give away!

I think Cindy-E got a lot closer than I in her guess.

If it comes back, I'll take it. It sure is cute.

Kayleigh

From the above wiki link:
"Among the parasites of the Mountain Beaver is the largest flea known to modern science Hystrichopsylla schefferi. Females of this flea can be 8 mm long."

Might want to check the dogs?

The one we saw was not that big. Maybe it's a baby?

Cindyc.

FRom the washington dept. of fish and wildlife.
http://wdfw.wa.gov/wlm/living/mtn_beavers.htm
"Mountain beavers, also called boomers, are 12 to 14 inches long and resemble large, overgrown hamsters or tailless muskrats. They have small ears and eyes, short, rudimentary tails, and large curved front claws that are used for digging, grasping, and climbing. (Photo from Mountain Beaver Journal.)"

The one I saw, if it had a tail at all, I couldn't see it.

Cindyc.

lol Me too!

it is a mountain beaver certainly

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...er_Closeup.jpg

It let her pick it up? Not very smart animals are they?

I wonder what they taste like...

I'm from Oregon. I think those are the same things we used to call "Rock Rabbits". If so, they make a very loud sound, gnashing their teeth, that echoes in the Mts. at night.

It looks just like the ground hogs I have been killing. I have never heard of a mountain bever before. I killed or caught close to 20 of them last year. I haven't bothered to count this year but it hasn't been as many.
If that picture isn't a ground hog, I have been shooting mountain beavers is all I know.
Maybe they are just called different things in different places.
I looked at one of the sites on this thread and it talked about them clacking their teeth. A ground hog does the same thing.
JMHO

Dennis

Dennis...a groundhog's head is a different shape, if you look closely. Groundhogs have a much squarer head, compared to the more angular head of this cute little devil. And groundhogs have tails! (Ask me how the dog knows.)

Kayleigh

This is interesting because we just discovered we have what we're pretty sure are mountain beavers here on my property.

My son was running more fence line up the hill through the woods and kept hearing/seeing small animals scurrying through the brush. They moved too fast for him to get a good look at but he found the holes in the hillside. He went on-line and did some research and everything points to the mountain beaver, although he still hasn't gotten a good look at them.

He wants to set the live trap and try to catch one so he can be sure. He also says he wants to catch one for a pet. He's kidding.....I think.

I'm in Washington state.

Janis

Wild critters that will let you pick them up can be sick! Since the whatever escaped, a call to local en con or health department is probably in order just to check. Sue

I hadn't thought about it, but I don't recall any of the ground hogs I caught having a tail either. More like a little nub sticking out. Now this has got me to wondering. It won't take long. I have another one eating at the garden already.
Boy I will be glad when I get the fence in. They are driving me nuts.
Dennis

Hey Dennis,
If you want groundhogs with tails I'll trap some and drop them off to you!
PQ

That's what I was thinking too! She's lucky she wasn't bitten!

If it had a little bare stubby tail, Bushy Tailed Wood Rat. (I have tons of these on my place)

If it had no tail, Mountain Beaver. I see these guys higher up on the mountain.

The little guys who look a lot like that and live in alpine areas are pikas. The bigger versions with a high-pitched whistle are marmots.

I'd a took it for a rat and shot it.

Looks like maybe a rat went all country when they first came over.
Nothing more than a hillbilly cousin to the sewer rat.

What a neat critter! I've never even heard of such a thing. It sounds like something made up that kids at camp send first time campers into the woods at night to find!

As for it letting her pick it up, we've had possums that have come up on the porch to steal catfood, and we literally had to sweep them off with a broom because they were too dumb to run away. Maybe they are like possums, intellectually speaking.

My grandmother was born, raised, and has lived most of her life in the Oregon Coast Range (near Florence). She agreed with the mountain boomer/beaver identification (they called them mountain boomers, and I always wondered what they were talking about, since they were gone from our area by the time I was a kid). She said they made big holes all over, and horses would step in the holes and break their legs, so the farmers in her area had a bounty on them and pretty well eradicated them (though they might be coming back in by now).

She also has a cute story that my Grandfather's mother told her: Shortly after Granddad was born, they had a dog with pups, and a cat with kittens. Great-grandma would put the baby in his cradle on the porch in the shade while she was working outside, where she could keep an eye on him. The momma dog would go out hunting and bring back mountain boomers; one for the kittens, one for the puppies, and one for the baby, which she would lay in the cradle alongside him. Great-grandma really wasn't too thrilled about having a dead animal in her precious little baby boy's cradle, LOL! But I thought it was pretty neat that the momma dog was taking care of all the babies on the place!

Kathleen

looks like one of those elbedritschels a mythical animal in PA Dutch . . . The difficulties of catching an elbedritsche are dwelt upon in loving detail. Almost grudgingly the old men consent to the young man joining the hunt. The greenhorn is given a bag in which to catch one and taken far off . . and stationed behind a rock or tree while the old men separate—or so he is given to understand—to drive the elbedritsches toward him. There he is left literally holding the bag.

That is a cool story!

Cindyc.

I was wrong, I have another hog in the trap and it does have a tail. I should have remembered it because it's the only way to get them out of the trap when I try to turn them loose.
Dennis