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A fact from Pack rat appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 7 November 2005. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that ancient packrat middens (essentially, packrat nests) can provide important clues about long-term changes in climate or vegetation in an area?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2005/November.

Wikipedia

Untitled

"Historically, houses in or near ghost towns such as Crestone, Colorado were typically infested with pack rats. In the days before television, this provided a measure of entertainment to the sensation-starved residents." is it just me, or does that sound slightly random? 86.84.54.179 20:55, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Merger Tag

Merge - Articles should be merged, the midden does not require it's own article. Headphonos 13:54, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As the guy who started packrat midden, I don't mind. - Banyan Tree 14:22, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think that this article should also be part of the climate change article.

I agree that Pack Rat and midden should be merged, and I wouldnt mind if human pack rat were combined also. Macroqueen 17:16, 24 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Definite Merge Yes, there's no reason the midden should be separate from the animal itself. It's just a behavior of the animal.

Name

Isn't "woodrat" a more common name for Neotoma? Ucucha 19:26, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

'More common,' according to whom? According to search engines and the internet? No, by a factor of several thousandfold. According to our personal experiences? No, they don't matter. According to text books? No, scholar.google.com yields more hits for packrat v woodrat (with qualifying presence of the term neotoma within six words). So no, I'm afraid woodrat isn't a more common name, although thank you for teaching me a name for packrat I had never heard of before. Sadly it's not often I learn new things anymore so I appreciate it. BaSH PR0MPT (talk) 09:42, 30 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Packrat vs. Pack Rat

The intro says that the official name is "Packrat" even though "Pack rat" is commonly used. Shouldn't the article's title take on the official spelling? At least, I think that's what's commonly done on most articles. However, I don't know for sure so I thought I'd check here first. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Golmschenk (talk • contribs) 02:54, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

yes, woodrat is the common term used for rodents in the genus Neotoma; packrat (one word) is an alternative. It tends to be used in non-scientific contexts. The American Society of Mammalogists produces species accounts that provide all kinds of information on mammals of the world. Someone needs to go into the ones written for woodrats and add it in. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.24.145.127 (talk) 21:03, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Role in paleontology, etc.

It may be worth noting that we owe pack rats for many paleolithic finds of European cave lions, cave bears, and other bones that have been hoarded - significant evidence suggests that most 'caves full of bones' were ex post facto collections made by pack rats collecting bright objects, including thousands of bones of dead animals. I have zero knowledge of these beasties besides their role in delivering to us some pretty amazing scientific finds through their indefatigable foraging for oddities. BaSH PR0MPT (talk) 09:38, 30 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 20: / Line 20: @@
 Isn't "woodrat" a more common name for ''Neotoma''? [[User talk:Ucucha|Ucucha]] 19:26, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
+:'More common,' according to whom? According to search engines and the internet? No, by a factor of several thousandfold. According to our personal experiences? No, they don't matter. According to text books? No, scholar.google.com yields more hits for packrat v woodrat (with qualifying presence of the term neotoma within six words). So no, I'm afraid woodrat isn't a more common name, although thank you for teaching me a name for packrat I had never heard of before. Sadly it's not often I learn new things anymore so I appreciate it. [[User:BaSH PR0MPT|BaSH PR0MPT]] ([[User talk:BaSH PR0MPT|talk]]) 09:42, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
 == Packrat vs. Pack Rat ==