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
Geography of the Gambia Geography of the Gambia The Gambia is a very small and narrow country with the border based on the Gambia River. The country is less than 48 km wide at its greatest width. The country's present boundaries were defined in 1889 after an agreement between the United Kingdom and France. It is often claimed by Gambians that the distance of the borders from the Gambia River corresponds to the area that British naval cannon of the time could reach from the river's channel. However, there is no historical evidence to support the story, and the border was actually delineated using