Hawaii’s confirmed Norway rat reports cluster in developed pockets within otherwise wild-looking places, including Diamond Head State Monument near Honolulu’s shoreline and the visitor areas and ranger facilities of Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park and Haleakalā National Park. Unlike the Polynesian rat, which likely arrived with Polynesian voyaging canoes long before European contact, the Norway rat reached the islands later, as a stowaway on European and American trading ships that began calling at Hawaiian ports in the late 1700s.
This is a heavy-bodied, ground-loving burrower, not a climber. It digs multi-entrance burrows near building foundations, seawalls, and drainage lines, and forages after dark for whatever it can find, from seeds and fruit to scraps, insects, and carrion. That habit ties it to built infrastructure rather than deep native forest, wherever it turns up in Hawaii or anywhere else.
Records here are sparse, just a handful of iNaturalist and GBIF reports gathered since 2000, with the most recent sighting from April 2025. Reports turn up scattered across the calendar, which fits an animal that doesn’t get watched closely once it’s established near people.
Full species profile
