N. Guinea Rats

Tree-Climbing and Kunai Species

rE mammalogist of the Australian Museum, Mr. Ellis Trough ton, is running a series of interesting art icles in “Monthly Notes”, the official pub lication of the Australian School of Pac ific Administration.

In the May issue he deals with native rats, prevalent in New Guinea, and tells how “Nip” Blood, well-known old Terri tory identity, succeeded in obtaining the two first specimens of a giant tree climbing rat, which are rare. They were collected in the Mount Hagen area. One of the specimens measured 34 inches, in cluding a naked rough-scaled tail which acts as a prehensile “climbing iron”. The rat has developed powerful chisel-in cisors for braking open hard-shelled nuts, and even' coconuts in lowland regions.

The writer refers to the greater menace to health and industry of the village rat (rattus browni) and a coarse-haired kunai rat, as they are hosts of the scrub typhus mites. “Indeed,” the writer states, “the presence of the flesh-pink en crustations of mites within the ears and around the anal parts of the rats and marsupials serve as an elementary warn ing of the risk of scrub-typhus infection.

Protective measures will by now have been well-covered by the Adminis tration and tropical hygiene services, but it cannot be stressed too often that places of abandoned settlement and plantation re-growth are among the real danger spots; that natives with their acquired immunity should be employed for clear ing operations; and that firing of the

fallen vegetation when it has been lying for some time appears to be the simp lest means of eliminating the ground mites, at least temporarily.