Being nocturnal, they predominantly forage throughout the night, more than once and they prefer eating at dusk and before dawn. What is very intriguing about the Roof rats is their tendency to hoard food items for future use. When their habitat is near a water body, they can even feed on aquatic animals, fishes, and even shellfish. Some of their preferred dietary items include barks, small plants, berries, nuts, food meant for domestic animals such as cats, dogs, cows or even chicken, seeds, vegetable or fruits, small insects such as snails, cockroaches and slugs, and even papers. However, when they are hungry enough, they are not as selective and can eat whatever is available – they become omnivorous. They prefer nuts, plants and fruits to grains or high protein stuff such as scraps of meat. The diet of the Roof rats is entirely different from their brethren species. Roof rats possessing a long tail and also, because the Norway rat can quickly adapt to the changes in the temperature compared to the Roof rats. Roof rats being the smaller sized ones with a considerably slender body on the basis of the tail size. Norway rats are another type of commensal rats which are different from the Roof rats by virtue of their size. The tiny ones, on the other hand, have proportionately larger heads and feet to their bodies. Their tails are rather large – more significant than their bodies, including their head and the tails are quite scaly.
Roof rats can be easily identified through their tails. Like the house mice, they too have very pointed features especially the nose, and large ears and eyes. Their colour is quite dark, almost blackish sometimes they can also be brown and with flecks of black. Compared to the others, Roof rats have a very smooth and soft fur which, unlike that of the Norwegian rats, is neither shaggy nor rough. One of the distinctive features of the Roof rats is their greyish or whitish underside, that is the reason they are often referred to as grey-bellied or white-bellied rats. Roof rats are very similar in appearance to house mice, and are, therefore, mistaken as house mice. It is, therefore, advisable to get rid of roof rats as soon as you become aware of their presence. As they can gnaw at and chew through metal pipes and plastic they can damage the structure of your house, which might take a lot of effort and financial investment to fix. Apart from damaging things, they are also one of the worst disease-causing vectors, as they contaminate food items by nibbling at them and transmitting harmful diseases through the contaminated food items. Roof rats, like other rats, nibble through anything that is exposed and readily available for gnawing, which includes essential files, clothes, bedding, and what not.
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