Water rat beloved in literature actually a vole

The introduced animals were bred from wild ones captured in Scotland. A further 350 voles will be released later this year. To enhance genetic diversity, they will come from a different source population.

There were ‘water rats’ in Limerick when I was a boy. We stalked them in Westfields Marsh, to see their webbed feet. It was a futile quest; neither water rats, nor their supposed webbed feet, exist. The creatures we encountered were ordinary brown rats. A schoolbook was partly to blame for the confusion. Kenneth Grahame’s animal fable, The Wind in the Willows, might be one of the most evocative titles in literature, but it has misled countless young readers. Its water rat character, ‘Ratty’, was a vole. Rats and voles belong to different families.

Cuddly little water voles have brown fur, rounded noses, and blunt muzzles. Active mainly by day, they don’t need large eyes. The ears are rounded, not pointed and sticking out, like rat ones. The tail is shorter, and partly furred, as are the feet, which are not webbed.