Dear commensals,
To some help in distinguishing between black and brown rats take a look in
the paper "Rattus rattus (Linné 1758) und Rattus norvegicus (Berkenhout
1769) in Österreich und deren Unterscheidung am schädel und postcranialem
Skelett" published in "Mitteilungen der Abteilung Zoologie des
Landesmuseums Joanneum (Graz) vol. 9 H.3 pp 141-188 (1982), by Petra
Wolff, B. Herzig-Straschil and K. Bauer.
Generally I don't find it to difficult to seperate rats and mice from
voles on postcranial bones once you have a god comparative collection
including juvenile specimens.
Leif Jonsson
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