A thought on why they like ASF's compared to Regular feeders

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Originally Posted by twh

mike i found this on a ASFR information site, DISTRIBUTION:
"widespread and locally very common throughout africa south of the sahara,excluding west africa."

are you assuming that since they are both from africa that there natural ranges overlap? not trying to be arguementive but the research i've done indicates that they are not natural prey items for BP's.

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If you are going to quote something, please quote the entire quote or it can be construed as misleading.

Here is the full quote:
"Distribution

Widespread and locally very common throughout Africa south of the Sahara, excluding West Africa. It is believed the species was once confined to southern Africa but spread northwards as a human commensal. In some other areas it is declining because of competition with the larger, more aggressive Black or Ship Rat Rattus rattus, which was inadvertently introduced into Africa by the early explorers. Its apparent absence from West Africa is perplexing. Most probably the prevailing habitat of dense rain forest is not to its liking, although the forest is now very fragmented and only in parts of Central Africa is it still continuous. Or maybe it could not compete with the indigenous fauna already found there. But possibly its absence from this area is misleading. Few field studies have been conducted on the smaller mammals of West Africa and it is conceivable that further research might ultimately show that the species does have a toehold there. "

Courtesy of this web site: http://www.jirds.cwc.net/rag/profiles/nmmr.htm

Yes, I do believe they are a natural food item of BP's. I have a coworker who is from Ghana who still goes back every year or two as he strugles to get his full US citizinship. He is familiar with the species (should have seen his face when I showed him the pictures!!!). He can't believe that I keep them in my garage. He says they are "the devils children." Ironicly, this same guy did not know that most of us get our ball pythons from Ghana. He thought they only exported gold!

very interesting to know someone from the region,some fact sheets on line may be common thought not based on fact.

does your co worker say that ASFR's are common and is there other kind of rodents,this is getting very interesting,makes me want to vacation in ghana.

I think the info both of you have provided is very telling in that perhaps the ASF's are not rampant like we would like to believe. On that note, I suspect that the term "toehold" is meant to imply that the ASF's could have a small population, but not be anywhere in number to be widespread and the natural choice for Ball pythons.

Also, the idea that they migrated northward would inconceivably imply that they were not the "natural" prey items of ball pythons, as they would have been introduced with the migration of humans and not been native to the area to ultimately BE the ball pythons first choice and natural food item.

A little tidbit...

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Whereas M. natalensis is known as
a serious pest species in sub-Saharan Africa, due
to its ability to undergo major population out-
breaks, no similar outbreaks have been ascribed to
M. coucha. Furthermore M. natalensis is known to
dominate rodent communities in recently dis-
turbed habitats, which may be resource limited.

Two species of mulitmammate mice, Mastomys
coucha and M. natalensis, occur in southern Africa
(Granjon et al., ’97). Mastomys coucha is endemic
to the region, while M. natalensis is widespread
through sub-Saharan Africa. The two species
cannot be distinguished morphologically in the
field and identification is dependent on cytogenetic
markers (Green et al., ’78; Granjon et al., ’97; Smit
et al., 2001) or multivariate discriminant analyses
of skull measurements (Dippenaar et al., ’93).

Mastomys natalensis is the most common murid
rodent of sub-Saharan Africa (Fiedler, ’88a). Due
to its sporadic population outbreaks it is consid-
ered an agricultural pest (Fiedler, ’88b). The
breeding potential of this species, together with
its high turnover rate (Leirs et al., ’96) allows it to
dominate within disturbed habitats affected by
factors including fire (Meester et al., ’79; Swane-
poel, ’81), drought, overgrazing (Bowland and
Perrin, ’88), or mining (Chidumayo, ’80; Ferreira
and van Aarde, ’96). It is also dominant on fallow
agricultural ground (Christensen, ’96).

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(Jackson and van Aarde, 2004)

I read several articles about ASF's being the key factor in spreading the Lassa Virus as far west as Senegal and Guinea and extending down to southern Africa from there.
They specifically mentioned that at the time ASF's were having a population explosion in Guinea and causing major problems.

If M. natalensis/P. natalensis is all the way over in Senegal and Guinea and extend down into southern Africa, then they cover the ball python home range.

I would also like to add the list of countries ASF's inhabit according to the IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
http://www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php/12868/all

Angola; Benin; Botswana; Burkina Faso; Burundi; Cameroon; Central African Republic; Chad; Congo; Congo, The Democratic Republic of the; Côte d'Ivoire; Equatorial Guinea; Ethiopia; Gabon; Ghana; Guinea; Guinea-Bissau; Kenya; Lesotho; Malawi; Mali; Mauritania; Mozambique; Namibia; Niger; Nigeria; Rwanda; Senegal; Sierra Leone; Somalia; South Africa; Sudan; Swaziland; Tanzania, United Republic of; Togo; Uganda; Zambia; Zimbabwe

I think it would be safe to say ASF's and ball pythons inhabit the same area's. Plus being that it's said that ASF's are Africa's most common rodent that would also lend more evidence that they are a food source for ball pythons.

I dug up something like 7 papers on the ASF and their breeding and eating habits last night, and all confirm that the Natalensis is widespread and can be found through much of sub sahara Africa (which is most of africa), with large population explosions after heavy rains.

Although most of the articles also reference south Africa as being the main population and conducted most of their studies there.

The before mentioned article may just be an old reference, since most new papers and articles zero in on the pest and population control in all agricultural areas. Noting that the zoonotic Lassa virus and the bubonic plague are spread by the Natal rats, meanwhile being a major harm towards farming efforts.

There's quite a lot of research written on these animals, it wasn't hard to find multitudes of articles online. A lot of them focus on the zoonotic diseases and pest control, but there are some to be had on their breeding and eating habits too. Very interesting stuff, I bookmarked 15 different websites last night. :)

I think a lot of the misinformation on this subject has a lot to do with the origional web page quoted in this thread "Natal Multimammate Rat" While it does appear to be very well written, I see no references. I see no links to where these "facts" were obtained. If you do a web search on ASF's, you will find the web page listed above, and you will also find MANY other write-ups that were obviously written using this web page as its source.

Not trying to hijack the thread or anything.... But as carriers of the plague, and all these other horrible things... How did ASF's get into the country in the first place? Should I be wearing a hazardous materials suite when I go into my garage??? :taz:

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Originally Posted by mcavana

Not trying to hijack the thread or anything.... But as carriers of the plague, and all these other horrible things... How did ASF's get into the country in the first place? Should I be wearing a hazardous materials suite when I go into my garage??? :taz:

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They were/are lab rats just like our regular ratties, I suspect that's where our first animals came from.

LOL,

Just got into work and talked to my coworker from Ghana again. I told him about this conversation and he laughed. After showing him the pictures again from the care sheet he said they are EVERYWHERE in Africa and that they are a bigtime pest in Ghana, especially the farmers. He said they breed like crazy and eat all the crops.

He smiled and said, "I guess it is true... One mans junk is another mans treasure"