What do you know today that you didn't know yesterday?

[arewethereyet]

Rodents comprise 40% of all mammals.

On one of our walks, my best buddy, Colby(my dog) and I saw a strange, very tiny version of a beaver running around my neighbor's driveway. Its back had that same curved/hunched look and it was brown. Looking it up, muskrats and Coypu/Nutria and the beaver, all look very similar but are different sizes(muskrat being smallest and beaver being the biggest) with different tails(beavers have that flat paddle, coypu have a long skinny tail, and muskrats have a long slender tail with a wideness to it that resembles the beaver paddle but not as wide and flat) and live in different regions.

A funny story about muskrats.  Several years back my husband kids and I took a trip to visit my parents in Iowa.  There were a couple acres of land to the south of their house  that they owned and it was bordered on the south side by a creek.  So dad didn't have to mow the area there were some men from town who planted a large sweet corn patch and some other veggies.  

I was washing dishes and looking out the window above the sink that looked out over the corn that was about four feet tall.  Near the creek side I thought I saw corn stalks falling.  It was one of those rub your eyes and look again moments.  Stalks would fall and then move toward the creek seemingly on their own.  This went on a few minutes and a pretty far sized area of corn was disappearing to the bank of the creek.  

Dad grabbed one of his guns and went down there to dispatch what turned out to be some muskrats who were busy harvesting corn.