Roof Rats Have Separate Colonies

Roof rats have soft and smooth fur that is typically brown with intermixed spots of black.

Roof rats have separate colonies.

Roof rats weight 4 to 12 ounces and are 13 3 4 to 17 3 4 from the tip of nose to end of tail. Being excellent climbers they can easily access any part of the house through pipelines wires blocks of brick or concrete or even branches of tall trees. Rattus rattus is black to slate colored on both back and belly. If you were to pull the tail back over the body the roof rat s tail would extend past its snout.

The easiest way to quickly distinguish a roof rat from a norway rat other than the smaller size is that a roof rat s tail is very long. Adult roof rats measure 6 8 16 20 cm when combining their head and body length. They have no notch on inside of their upper front teeth. Roof rats live in colonies and even forage in small groups of ten or so.

Their undersides are often white gray or black. So where do rats hide. The color of the roof rat varies depending on the sub species and is as follows. However the two most common types found in the united states are the norway rat and the roof rat.

Both can mate and rapidly multiply causing an overpopulation of rats that can cause a health and safety issue for the people and animals that are surrounded by them. The key difference is that roof rats live and nest in high places while norway rats live and nest in colonies that are at or below ground level. Where rats live rats habitat will vary depending on both their species and on rural or country setting. The female roof rat has ten mammary glands.