The poor little muskrat! So torment by humans saying, “ooh it’s a rat!” In fact and despite the fact that it is a rodent, the muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus)) is much more closely related to the beaver than to the rat. It has, indeed, been referred to as a “musk beaver” rather than a “musk rat.” One encounters these elegant swimmers in the swampy ponds of North America, particularly among the cat tails, which are their major source of found.

Most wonderful is the association between the muskrat and the creation of the world in the mythology of many native American peoples. As an illustrative example, I encourage my readers to read the story of the world’s creation on the webpage of the Oneida Nation. Read it and ponder how similar, but so much more ancient it is than the Judeo-Christian story of creation. Once our world was a water world, devoid of earth. The Great Turtle agreed to have the world built upon his back, but the trouble was that there was no soil. All the creatures tried to dive to the waters bottom to bring back a little mud. The otter who was a great swimmer tried but fail. In the end it was the musk rat who succeeded and the world was created of the soil he brought back mingled with some earth that was taken from the roots of the magical Great World Tree which illuminated, much like the Tree of Wisdom, from the upper world (heaven).

I encountered the little fellow of Figure 1 this past Saturday hiding amongst his breakfast. He seemed to be enjoying the early spring sunshine and feeling quite secure posed for me.

Canon T2i with EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM lens at 160 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE mode 1/3200 th sec at f/6.3 with no exposure compensation.