Woodland wildlife and death

Today's hike in Fairmount Park, a vast wooded area that sprawls around the northwest of the city, was aimed at finding edible mushrooms but although there were saprophytic crust and bracket fungi galore, there was nothing to complement the evening meal.

This was the most exciting find: the skull of a muskrat, Ondatra zibethicus, from a skeleton that was scattered among the dead leaves. Although I didn't immediately recognise it for what it was, the long curved tusk-like teeth were obviously those of a rodent. I've seen dead muskrats in France, and there are some in Britain, but here they are a common species living mainly in wet, swampy areas. (We were not far from the Wissahickon river and its one remaining dam, the Margarge, in colonial times site of a paper mill that supplied paper to Benjamin Franklin's printing press.)

The front teeth of the muskrat are good example of an evolutionary modification: they protrude to such an extent that the lips can be closed behind them. This means that the muskrat can chew on underwater roots and stems with its mouth closed and water doesn't enter its gullet and respiratory system.

Muskrats, although basically giant field mice, are much more interesting that one might imagine in other ways too: they have paddle-like feet, they build lodges in stream similar to but smaller that those of beavers and they can find their vegetarian food in the dark under ice. Those curious can find out more about them here.

Native Americans valued the muskrat for its fur and for the sinews in its tail which they used as thread. They have long been a important food source and early settlers in North America relied upon them in times of hardship. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the muskrat, in common with the barnacle goose, belongs to that ambiguous category of meat that the Catholic Church permitted to stand in for fish: "Muskrat meat is tender and tastes gamey like rabbit or duck.In the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit, there is a longstanding dispensation allowing Catholics to consume muskrat on Ash Wednesday, and the Fridays of Lent (when the eating of meat, except for fish, is prohibited). Because the muskrat lives in water, it is considered equivalent to fish." [Wikipedia]