On Fri, 20 Dec 2002 01:48:35 +1100, Trish Brown
wrote:

Now that you mention it, there's something that's had me befuddled for a
couple of years...

Once, the family and I were wandering along Nobby's Breakwater
(Newcastle, NSW). Right at the very end, among the tumbled rocks and
fishermen's litter, we spotted two enormous rats, each with half a white
tail! That is, the end half of each rat's tail was white. The rats were
dark brown to black and didn't have that 'Rodentia' look that the common
rat does: their snouts were much shorter and they seemed to have cheek
pouches. Anyway, I wondered at the time if they could possibly be
marsupial rats, but assumed they were just black rats who'd been
stirring whitewash with their tails.


They sound like water rats, a native species. They have half white
tails and often frequent breakwaters. If they had short fur on their
tails, then that clinches it.

You've resurrected a long-forgotten menory for me. When I first
started studying at uni I was doing it externally and cooking at the
cafe in Shute Harbour (Whitsundays) to keep a roof over my head. There
were three water rats that lived under the building that the cafe was
in, as it sat over a breakwater. It often took a lot of explaining to
people that no, those "rats" weren't the sort likely to break in to
the kitchen and start eating their food.

Tara