Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain Stuff Lauren Vogel bomb here. Most people don't know much about muskrats, perhaps other than remembering that classic nine seventies song about their ability to experience romantic love. While we can't speak to that, here's what we do know about muskrats. Muskrats are semi aquatic rodents. They're stout little critters with thick fur that can range in color from red to brown to black. It's also lighter on their
throat and stomach. A short, stiff coat of under fur provides them with much needed insulation and buoyancy in the water. They can weigh anywhere from one to six pounds that's about half a kilo to three kilos, and can be a foot or too long, about thirty to sixty centimes. Their long tails are vertically flattened and sparsely haired. It acts as a rudder when a muskrat swims. There are sometimes staken for their rodent cousins, beavers, which are also
semi aquatic. However, beavers are larger than muskrats, about the size of a small golden retriever, and their tails are horizontally flat like a paddle. For the article this episode is based on, has to Fork spoke with Margaret Gillespie, a naturalist with Squam Lakes Natural Science Center in New Hampshire. She said beavers and muskrats are both gnawing rodents, but beavers build dams that result in ponds where muskrats can live.
Swimming is muskrats forte and they are fast. They can paddle up to three miles an hour that's five kilometers an hour. Their large hind feet are partially webbed and act as oars. They're also able to stay underwater without taking a breath for up to twenty minutes. You can find them in any type of fresh water, including ponds and lakes, but they prefer marshes with lots of vegetation and a steady depth of at least four to six
feet that's one to two meters of water. They're swimming skills make up for their poor vision, hearing, and sense of smell. Muskrats are native to most of North America south of the tundra. Marshes provide muskrats a full menu of food, which is good because they eat about a third of their body weight every day. They typically eat roots, stocks, and cattails, with a few frogs and insects thrown in.
In the winter, they swim below the surface ice to get to roots, because unlike beavers, they prefer food fresh and don't store it away for the cold months. Flaps in their mouths behind their teeth keep water from getting in while they're eating. Muskrats use mud and vegetation to build dome shaped lodges on tree stumps or anything that's partially submerged in water. Their lodges can be up to three feet that's one meter tall and contain dry chambers
that the animals live in. They help them keep cool during the summer and warm during cold winters. Each lodge will have it least one underwater entrance to a tunnel extending out to dry land. Muskrats like to stay in large family groups within their own territories. The female muskrats are prolific childbearers and have one to three litters of five or six kits every year. They nest in chambers inside their lodges and have a gestation period of just
about a month. Kids are born blind, but they're quick learners. They can swim at about twenty one days after birth. Muskrat moms will kick their offspring out of the lodge when they hit that one month birthday or if it just gets too crowded. They can live as long as ten years in captivity or about three or four years in the wild. Muskrats are active at any time of day, but are most active from mid afternoon through dusk. Muskrat life isn't just one big swimming party among the cattails,
though there are many. Predators include raccoons, owls, hawks, fox mink otters, and bald eagles, as well as humans who trapped them for food, would and for fur. They're slow on the land, which is why they stick to the water so much. They're swimming skills often allow them to escape predators, diving under water or hiding in their lodges. Muskrats vocalize with a range of squeaks, chirps, and sort of whiney sounds, which often serve as warning of nearby intruders.
But that's not their only form of communication, and this brings us to how they got their name. Muskrats also communicate by gland secretion. Gillespie said, rather than being malodorous like skunk spray, it has a sweet smell. Its main purpose is for scent marking to convey the animal's presence in the area. Muskrats can be considered pests on farms. Wild muskrats will eat stores of grain and sometimes plug
the drainage tiles and fields. And since muskrats also have a habit of building their homes near dikes or dams, the lodges can weaken the structures and eventually destroy them. So when a bald eagle snatches up at muskrat for dinner or a fur trader traps one, that actually helps keep the population in balance and more dikes and dam's intact.
But back to that song, Muskrat Love. Although it was first recorded in the early nineteen seventies by songwriter Willis Allan Ramsay and covered soon after by the band America, it didn't become a hit until pop duo Captain and Tanil covered it in nineteen seventy six. It peaked at number four on the Hot one chart that year when they sang the song at a July nineteen seventy six
White House dinner honoring Queen Elizabeth the Second. A guest who attended the dinner was later quoted as saying that it was in very poor taste to sing about mating muskrats before the Queen. Today's episode is based on the article muskrats are fat little rodents with a signature smell on house to forks dot com, written by Meg Sparwin. Rain Stuff is production of by Heart Radio in partnership with house to works dot com, and it's produced by
Tyler Klang. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.