Cat Days #2, plus free biology lesson

The many faces of a cat: on high alert, Parsnip is defending her meal from its rightful owner, the farm cat that actually caught the rat. The victim is no ordinary introduced rat like the House rat ( Rattus rattus ) or the Brown rat ( Rattus norvegicus ), but an indigenous Vlei rat ( Otomys irroratus ) that I have grown to like. It's densely furred, has a shorter tail, and is diurnal rather than nocturnal, so you spot it in the daytime minding its own business nibbling on grass shoots and other plant matter. Vlei rats don't colonise human settlements, preferring healthy living in the countryside instead. A bit like the story of the Town mouse and the Country mouse...