Ship Rat Gallery 3

Coloured drawing of grey-bellied ginger ship rat

SHIP RAT GALLERY 3

Photographs of British, Italian and American ship rats.

Go to:

Page 1

Colour-varieties and markings.

Go to:

Page 2

Variations in head-shape, ears etc..

Page 3

Portraits and personalities.

All animals shown are mine unless otherwise specified.

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Head of brown-backed, grey-bellied ship doe peering round end of brick

Rennie, Rachel Donald's Californian alexandrinus (grey-bellied agouti) doe. Rennie was rescued from a cat as a small baby, and survived a perforated belly to become a very loving and playful companion.

Brown-backed, grey-bellied ship doe staring directly at viewer

Rachel says "she likes it when I blow, aggressively, into her face - she gets closer and closer, squinting her eyes and finally she freaks out, does what I think looks like a convulsive dance, and comes back for more... this is her coming back for more."

Brown-backed, grey-bellied ship doe peering out between two white pillows

Rennie lives free-range, and shares her human's bed at night - sleeping between her feet.

Brown-backed, grey-bellied ship doe dragging a pencil across a bedspread, one back foot raised

Rennie pinching a pencil - picking her way across the bedspread with her ill-gotten gains.

Head of ticked-brown ship doe, peering over a cushion looking whiskery and alert

Rennie looking whiskery and alert...

Brown-backed, grey-bellied ship doe standing looking out of a window

Rennie again - just because it's a nice shot.

Brown-backed, grey-bellied ship doe standing beside a window

Rennie again.

Front view of brown ship rat standing on flowered cloth

Valerie Pfeiffer's Canadian buck Tobias, found as a hairless "pinkie" lying on the pavement, with paired puncture-wounds from some predator's claws or teeth on his back and belly. In this photo' he is about 4 months old.

Photograph, in rondel, of head and chest of brown ship with pale oatmeal belly, lying on his back having his chest rubbed by human fingers, which he is licking

Tobi is particularly fond of finger-wrestling.

Photograph of head and chest of brown ship with pale oatmeal belly, lying on his back having his chest rubbed by human fingers

Face of brown ship rat looking out of round hole in wooden box

Tobi again - he lives in a magnificent 7ft tall cage.

Little frugivorous doe in three-quarter view, standing on woman's shoulder

Janet Girard's frugivorous doe Ike-ola, rescued at about three weeks old from the mouth of a cat in the hills of Los Angeles, a few miles from the Griffith Observatory, and raised on canned milk, bread and cottage cheese. She started out as plain Ike, until I pointed out that "he" was a she!

Cage-tank containing miniature fairground game - a board with muscular torsos painted on it, with a frugivorous ship doe's head appearing on top of the torso of an Ancient Egyptian

Ike-ola in her own private fairground. The resolution on this image is very low, but I decided I couldn't resist it... She likes to be sung to in Italian, and lives very happily with her nice Norwegian boyfriend Stuie.

Greyish-ginger ship doe looking down from top of cage

This photograph appeared in Pro-Rat-a, the journal of the British National Fancy Rat Society, with the caption "Hickory looking down on other species". Hicky once disappeared for 2 or 3 days, until I woke up to find her sitting on my forehead grooming my eyebrows.

Brown and black ship buck glaring out through cage bars

Murdoch's ferocious son Yoyo, (he of the retractable balls, whose hobbies included "Shredding cloth" and "Making annoying twanging noises", and who only ate fruit if it came with cream and sugar), daring the entire universe to fight him, and demonstrating that if the invading Norway rat did kill off the native British ship rat (as most textbooks written by people who've never met a male ship rat claim) it was self-defence.

Go to:	Page 1	Colour-varieties and markings.
Go to:	Page 2	Variations in head-shape, ears etc..
	Page 3	Portraits and personalities.