South Carolina’s marsh rice rat records concentrate in the Lowcountry, the tidal marsh and barrier-island country around ACE Basin, Cape Romain, and Hunting Island. That coastal salt and brackish marsh is exactly the flooded, grassy habitat this rodent depends on for cover and food.
Marsh rice rats swim well and move through flooded marsh grass to feed on seeds, plants, insects, and small aquatic animals. They build nests woven from marsh vegetation well above the tide line to stay dry, a semi-aquatic habit that sets them apart from most other rodents sharing the same coastal ground.
The 44 South Carolina records lean toward late fall and winter, with none at all logged in July or September. That pattern more likely reflects when observers were out searching the marsh than any real pause in the rat’s activity.
