West African shaggy rat long as the head-and-body length; it is ringed by small scales and clad with sparse short bristles. The head-and-body length of this rat averages and the weight averages . The West African shaggy rat is native to tropical West Africa; its rangeincludes Benin, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. It inhabits wetlands and swampy areas, streams, riverbanks, lakesides, young oil-palm plantations and rice fields. The West African shaggy rat is a terrestrial species. It is nocturnal and a good swimmer. It lives in a shallow burrow, the entrance often hidden under a
Wildlife of the Gambia soils of laterite formations. The local tree species include silk cotton "(Bombax costatum)", dry-zone mahogany "(Khaya Senagalensis)" in deeper soil areas and African rosewood "(Guibourtia coleosperma)". Short grasses and shrubs are seen thinly spread in the Sahelian habitats. The gallery forests (moisture forests), unlike the rainforest, thrive on groundwater and are integral to savannas. It is a rare habitat found only in Abuko Nature Reserve, Pirang Forest Park and in some stretches of the Gambia River with different set of species with some degree of overlap with rainforests. Urban habitat consists of numerous villages. The open areas in between have