196 Department of Conservation of Louisiana 



The map on page 197 will show the general distribution 

 of these several species and subspecies of the North Ameri- 

 can continent and the range of the various forms can be 

 ascertained from the caption beneath the distribution map. 



Thoroughly designed by nature for an aquatic life, 

 muskrats are found in the greater part of their range in 

 the vicinity of ponds, brooks, swamps, marshes, and streams 

 of all kinds. The Louisiana muskrat is an inhabitant of the 

 extensive coastal-marshes of the state and is found nowhere 

 else in Louisiana. Its range is adequately portrayed by 

 the shaded portions of the outline map of the southern half 

 of the state on page 199. Its geographic relation to the 

 other species and forms of muskrats of North America is 

 shown by the map on the opposite page. 



The Louisiana muskrat is recognized as a distinct spe- 

 cies and separated from other members of its genus by wide 

 stretches of country. As Hollister 24 has pointed out, all 

 existing forms of muskrats are closely related. The ma- 

 jority are geographic races of one species, and blend in 

 character from one to another. The type is Fiber zibeth- 

 icus zibethicus, with eleven subspecies or geographical 

 forms distributed quite generally over the continent. The 

 two other separate species are the muskrat of southern 

 Newfoundland, Fiber obscuiiLS, and the muskrat of south- 

 ern Louisiana, Fiber rivalicius. 



The scientific name of our muskrat is derived from two 

 sources. The name of the genus, Fiber, is from the Latin 

 word which means "beaver," and was given the muskrat 

 by a French scientist named Couvier, in 1800, who pointed 

 out that Linnaeus, in 1758, had confounded the muskrat 

 with the desman of Asia when the earlier naturalist gave 

 our animal the generic name of Castor. 



It may be noted by some that many authors use the 

 name Ondatra as the generic name of the muskrat, viz , 

 Ondatra rivalicius, but as Hollister in his revision used 

 Fiber as the name for the genus, it is so used in this bulletin. 



2 *Hollister, A Systematic Synopsis of the Muskrats, p. 11. 



