Its diet consists mainly of wood rats (Neotoma sp.)

A coyote had chased Roger away from the wood rat he had been about to catch that afternoon.

"But these cannot be the pelts of the arapai; rather, they are the thin and smelly hides of the wood rat."

Twenty-one of the wood rats are still alive, Mr. McGowan said.

"It's premature to tell, but circumstantial evidence so far indicates that the roundworm appears to play a role in the disappearance of the wood rat," he said.

"The wood rats are a great species to work with," he said, especially when compared with the moose that were his last assignment.

She has two dogs, three degus, or Chilean wood rats, and a parrot.

This particular species lives in association, and feeds almost exclusively on wood rats of the genus Neotoma.

Plague occurs naturally in the southwestern states, where there have been rare cases of transmission by wood rats and fleas.

The same cat who could explode into a hot chase after a wood rat, all claws and muscle, and nothing soft or helpless about her.