The long, almost naked tail is laterally compressed. The fore feet are small but the hind feet are relatively large, the toes being slightly webbed at their bases and supplied with heavy lateral fringes of bristles. The tail and hind feet are thus highly adapted to swimming. As in many rodents there are four toes on the fore feet and five toes on the hind feet. In still water muskrats build large dome-shaped houses, the bases of which are submerged.
Entrance is from underneath.
In streams or in lakes with steep banks they burrow in from under the water, inclining their tunnels upward to a nesting room which they hollow out above water line. Their food consists of bulbs, roots, leaves, tubers, or other portions of plants which grow adjacent to our in the water. The name muskrat comes from the fact that certain glands produce a musky secretion. The muskrat has been one of the most important fur-bearing animals on the continent famous for its fur trade. The writer remembers seeing as a boy, in Edmonton, Alberta, the greatest shipment of raw furs ever brought in from the Mackenzie River country.