rodent, (order Rodentia), any of more than 2,050 living species of mammals characterized by upper
and lower pairs of ever-growing rootless incisor teeth. Rodents are the largest group of
mammals, constituting almost half the class Mammalia’s approximately 4,660 species. They
are indigenous to every land area except Antarctica, New Zealand, and a few Arctic and other oceanic
islands, although some species have been introduced even to those places through their association
with humans. This huge order of animals encompasses 27 separate families, including not only the
“true” rats and mice (family Muridae) but also such diverse groups
as porcupines, beavers, squirrels, marmots, pocket gophers, and chinchillas.
General features
capybaraCapybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris).
All rodents possess constantly growing rootless incisors that have a hard enamel layer on the front of
each tooth and softer dentine behind. The differential wear from gnawing creates perpetually
sharp chisel edges. Rodents’ absence of other incisors and canine teeth results in a gap, or diastema,
between incisors and cheek teeth, which number from 22 (5 on each side of the upper and
lower jaws) to 4, may be rooted or rootless and ever-growing, and may be low- or high-crowned. The
nature of the jaw articulation ensures that incisors do not meet when food is chewed and that upper
and lower cheek teeth (premolars and molars) do not make contact while the animal gnaws.
Powerful and intricately divided masseter muscles, attached to jaw and skull in different
arrangements, provide most of the power for chewing and gnawing.
The range in body size between the mouse (18 grams [0.64 ounce], body 12 cm [4.7 inches] long)
and the marmot (3,000 grams, body 50 cm long) spans the majority of living rodents, but the
extremes are remarkable. One of the smallest is Delany’s swamp mouse (Delanymys brooksi),
associated with bamboo in the marshes and mountain forests in Africa. It weighs 5 to 7 grams, and
the body is 5 to 6 cm long. The largest is the capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) of Central and
South America, which weighs 35 to 66 kg (77 to 146 pounds) and stands 50 to 60 cm at the shoulder,
with a body 100 to 135 cm long. Some extinct species were even larger, attaining the size of a black
bear or small rhinoceros. The largest rodent ever recorded, Josephoartigasia monesi, lived some two
to four million years ago, during the Pleistocene and Pliocene epochs; by some estimates it grew to a
length of about 3 metres (10 feet) and weighed nearly 1,000 kg.
Importance to humans
Rodents have lived on the planet for at least 56 million years and modern humans for less than one
million, but the consequences of their interactions during that short overlap of evolutionary time
have been profound. For rodents, early humans were just another predator to avoid, but with Homo
sapiens’ transition from nomadic hunting and gathering to sedentary agricultural practices, humans
became a reliable source of shelter and food for those species having the innate genetic and
behavioral abilities to adapt to man-made habitats. The impact of these species upon human
populations ranges from inconvenient to deadly. Crops are damaged before harvest; stored food is
contaminated by rodent waste; water-impounding structures leak from burrowing; and objects are
damaged by gnawing. Certain species are reservoirs for diseases such
as plague, murine typhus, scrub typhus, tularemia, rat-bite fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever,
and Lassa fever, among others. Only a few species are serious pests or vectors of disease (see house
mouse and rat), but it is these rodents that are most closely associated with people.
Various other rodents are beneficial, providing a source of food through hunting and husbandry
(see cavy, cane rat, bamboo rat, paca, capybara, and woodchuck), apparel derived from
their fur (see nutria and chinchilla), test animals for biomedical and genetic research (especially mice
and rats), pleasure as household pets (see golden hamster, guinea pig, and gerbil), and insight on
mammalian biology and evolutionary history.
Britannica Quiz
Wild Words from the Animal Kingdom Vocabulary Quiz
Natural history
Rodents may be diurnal, nocturnal, or sometimes active part of the day and night. Although some
species are herbivorous, diets of most include vegetable and animal matter. Others are opportunistic
generalists, and some are specialized predators, not only of arthropods (see grasshopper mouse) but
sometimes of vertebrates. Food is either eaten where gathered or carried to burrows and stored
(see pocket gopher, pocket mouse, African pouched rat, and hamster). Species living in arid habitats
and on oceanic islands are able to obtain their water requirements from their food. A wide variety of
shelters are used or constructed; these range from tree holes, rock crevices, or simple burrows to
hidden nests on the forest floor, leaf and stick structures in tree crowns, mounds of cut vegetation
built in aquatic environments, or complex networks of tunnels and galleries. Rodents may be active
all year or enter periods of dormancy or deep hibernation. Breeding time and frequency, length of
gestation, and litter size vary widely, but two of the most prolific are both associated with humans.
The brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) can give birth to litters of up to 22 offspring, and the house
mouse (Mus musculus) can produce up to 14 litters annually. Population size may remain stable or
fluctuate, and some species, most notably lemmings, migrate when populations become excessively
large.
Form and function
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Eastern gray squirrelEastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinenis).
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Eurasian red squirrelEurasian red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris).
The body form of tree squirrels may be the model for the earliest, and presumably generalized,
rodents (genus Paramys). With their ability to adhere to bark with their claws, squirrels adeptly
scamper up tree trunks, run along branches, and leap to adjacent trees; but they are equally agile on
the ground, and some are capable swimmers. Burrowers are also represented in the form of long-
tailed ground squirrels.
