Most North Carolina reports of this rat come from the Coastal Plain and Tidewater, the broomsedge fields and salt-marsh edges around Cape Hatteras National Seashore and Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. It also turns up in the Piedmont’s overgrown pastures and roadside grass, but it’s the Coastal Plain’s wide, thick-grass flats that produce the densest cluster of records statewide.
These rats don’t dig burrows of their own. They chew narrow runways through dense grass and use them like tunnels, moving between a nest of shredded plant material tucked at ground level and nearby feeding spots. They eat mostly grasses and sedges but will take insects and even bird eggs when they’re available, and they breed fast enough that a marsh full of tall grass can hold a lot of runway traffic within a season.
North Carolina records run every month of the year, with reports rising through spring and peaking around April and June. That pattern likely tracks grass growth and breeding activity as much as it does the animal’s actual presence, since cotton rats don’t hibernate or leave the state.
Full species profile
