Wildlife Viewing - With Your Child

Are you a pack rat? We use that term to describe people who save everything. In Florida, the real pack rat is a rodent called the Eastern woodrat. woodrats here prefer to build stick nests or to nest in hollow logs or stumps in mature floodplain forests. Because the stick nest can be quite large, and may contain odd items such as bones, cloth, shotgun shells, coins and pieces of jewelry, woodrats earned the nickname pack rat.

The eastern woodrat is a native rat, not to be confused with such introduced species as the black rat or Norway rat. Unlike those species, the woodrat has white feet and a moderately hairy tail that is dark above and white underneath. The woodrat is nocturnal, eats plant foods and the occasional insect, and is not considered to be destructive to buildings or an agricultural pest like the introduced species.

photo of eastern woodrat
eastern woodrat

photo of woodrat nest
eastern woodrat nest

Readers 8 and older will enjoy the pack rat theme in Will Hobbs’ book, “Kokopelli’s Flute.” Tepary Jones, the 13-year old protagonist, finds a small bone flute dropped by vandals raiding an ancient Pueblo ruin in New Mexico. Tepary blows on the flute and discovers first-hand what the life of a pack rat is all about. Readers will learn a little about woodrat biology and paleonidology (the study of old nests, such as woodrat middens), while enjoying an adventure story laced with mystery and magic.