We know about bears. We know about wolves and bobcats. We know about mice, deer, whales - and we know about human beings. But there are many mammals on our North American continent that I've never heard of, much less seen. Today, the muskrat came up. Now, I have heard of muskrats - but only because someone wrote a song about 'Muskrat Love' in the 1970s. What is a muskrat like? Where do they live? How do you find one?

I went to friendly Wikipedia and looked them up - cute little things like short-eared rabbits or long-furred guinea pigs. Except reading about them, if the article is accurate, their behaviors sound more like that of beavers. Their fur has the density and qualities to withstand water. They swim and make nests that look like river igloos - made of mud and leaves and sticks instead of ice. They're family critters, like beavers and otters. And yes, muskrat love exists - they produce young with some frequency several times a year.

A few years back, we had a reference book on mammals, and I was suprised to see how many different mammals share the territory where I live - central Texas - and yet we've never met. Perhaps that kind of distance is in our mammal neighbors' best interest - or maybe if we knew more about them, we'd be more considerate of their habitat and food preferences.