OK so a couple of days I'm just idly watching the garden in the late afternoon sun.. I live in the suburbs of large central City in England... when i spot what i think is probably a rat... Ie a four legged largish mammal with a skinny non furry tail... Now ive seen quite a few rats and understand they can grow to quite some size... Now what i saw was big for a rat... Also it's face had a far flatter profile than any rat I've seen before.. It reminded me of an Otter rather than a rat.. Then there was a the fur, which in the late afternoon sun seemed to be almost a mix of grey brown and straw yellow.

It vanished into some undergrowth before i could get a camera and when i finally did there was no trace...

My question is this what other mammals with four *handlike* feet that travels on all fours about 18 inches long from snout to tail tip.. (45cms) with brownish golden fur and a face akin to an otter are liable to show up, in a garden, in broad daylight, in a city in central England?

Addendum.... If i didn't know better I'd say that is exactly what was in my garden

http://encarta.msn.com/media_461532023/Coypu.html

Could it have been a chinchilla?

18" from head to tail is well within the rat range.
How could it be flatter than a rat?

Opposum? Do you have them over there? Sounds just like one to me.

I'm fairly au fait with how rats look... my friend use to keep and raise them.. They have a very characteristic snout that is quite slim and reaches almost an apex or point above their front incisors... My first thought was rat.. but looking at the creatures face it was way way more like the flat fronted snout of an otter

http://encarta.msn.com/media_461532023/Coypu.html as opposed to http://www.dozierbell.com/images/drawings/rat.jpg ..plus, i have never seen a *golden furred* rat..

Opposum? Do you have them over there? Sounds just like one to me. <---------------- nope, not native to England and certainly not native to suburban back gardens in a city... We have no Zoo in Coventry either...

Not to rain on your parade....but its been proven that your first thought is correct 80% or more of the time.
Its probably a rat as you said yourself.

There are MANY things that aren't native to places. People buy them...bring them in as a pet....and they either release them...or the "exotic" animal escapes.

Not to rain on your parade....but its been proven that your first thought is correct 80% or more of the time.
Its probably a rat as you said yourself. <-------------- I can see where you coming from but its worth remembering that this is England and outside of wild Capybarya thats escaped into the Norfolk Broads some distance from my City.. the only native large rodents we have are grey squirrels and rats... Ergo my first thought was rat... however , given i am familiar with rats, i immediately re assessed my thoughts because it didn't actually look like a rat when i focused on it closer..

And yes, I'm of the opinion it probably is some kind of *exotic pet* that escaped

If you are familiar with rats and you said it was a rat.....chances are its a rat.

Next time Gator picks on you, toss a pet rock at him. (He hates em!)

I believe the exotic pet theory. Try the meditation trick, where you try to slip back into the moment. Maybe you can get a clearer picture in your head.

I have an exotic pet....I'm concentrating...................its an egg!!! Please throw no rocks.....

No, we have no marsupials.

Actually we have breeding colony's of wallabies in the UK although not as common as they were.

I am sure this sighting can be explained we have many types of rodent looking critters running around, pine martins, stoats, pole cats weasels, minks, otters not to mention any number of pets that could have been released by its owner.

Actually with the exotic (and usually illegal) pet trade such as it is. I would have to agree that there is a very good chance that it is something that "shouldn't" be in England, but is..

And for the last 10 years or so, people have been aquiring Prarie Dogs as pets (trust me, they make terrible pets)... they do have funny and somwhat cute faces (otter-like) and can be grey to blonde or buff colored. They do however lack a ratty tail. Here's a picture:



And here is the fugly Oppossum--it does have a nasty ratty tail, and they can grow to be HUGE:

Sorry, I should have phrased it better really. We have no native marsupials in this country.
Yeah, there are plenty of animals it could have potentially have been, like the ones XSAS listd above. Unfortuanatly we can only speculate from this postiion.

My best bet it was a pet, perhaps ranaway. Try asking your surrounding neighbours should any of them lost one. I was once in South Ealing and sometimes at night, you can even see fox on the streets!

Do you have muskrats in England?
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&...G=Search+Images

I believe Muskrats were introduced to the UK for fur farming and many escaped or were released by animal rights activists.

I've heard something similar. The initial description of the animal does indeed sound like a muskrat (I live near a pond in the NE USA and those muskrat critters are all around here).

Hey, I heard that some fellow in Florida awoke to find an Aussie wallaby hopping through his back yard! How's that for an "out of place" animal.

..Either it escaped from it's owner, or hopped across The Atlantic...either way, it couldn't be happy about ending up in Florida.

You mention in your first post that it reminded you more of a otter or beaver. well, saying that reminds me of an otter sized rat called the NUTRIA RAT!
they are the size of freakin' bowling balls! I remember shooting one off the dock at my lakehouse. To my surprise, he swam to the other side of the river and continued munching on some food. I guess he had the last laugh.




Here's a picture of one bigger than a small dog.

I think we have a winner... The Coypu and the Nutria are one and the same creature http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coypu ....... notice how in the pics the fur seems both dark and golden brown depending on how the light falls on it... Thats exactly the sort of coat the animal i saw had and the face is a dead ringer for it..

Maybe it was some sort of cross breed Rat.....Just a thought....

If you have nutria in England, that's a bit of a bummer. I lived in New Orleans, and they are JUST like big fat rats. Eww.

Yeah, I remember on the Terry Town side of New Orleans, on the English Turn off of General De Gaulle Street, I use to chunk rock at those buggers and all they would do was watch the rock hit the ground. I felt as if they were laughing at me.

Yeah!!!!! I hope we are getting closer to solving this one.

This has just become a RAT RACE !

Could well be a Coypu. I think there was problems with them between 10 and 20 years ago in england along several waterways. Coypu were excavating rivers and streams extensively, causing massive damage to habitats. I think they were culled eventually. So could well be.




My mum's seen a wallaby while walking the dogs, in the wood close to the house. In East Scotland! But then, there is an Australian resturaunt just over the other side of the hill so that explains it, plus the wallabies regularly escape. But the place is a good 2 miles away.

They eat wallabys????

Why not people eat Kangeroo as well.

But why?

Lol! not quite, but they do keep wallabies as pets. Actually you do get 'Roo steaks, and crocodile, so why not? They keep rheas too (I think, rheas or emus... which ever one is Australian and not S. American).

Rheas are from S. America, but they're eaten too

Yes, we have a lot of species that shouldn't be in our country but are for various reasons. To name a few:
Wallabies (like XSAS said)
Parakeets (a breeding flock in London)
Midwife toads (accidentally brought in with a load of plants)
American mink (escaped from farms)



If wallabies were/are good enough for thylacines, they're good enough for us.




People eat people. People eat snakes. People eat insects. People eat broccoli. People eat all sorts of crazy things