Brants's whistling rat

Brants's whistling rat (Parotomys brantsii) is one of two species of murid rodent in the genus Parotomys, found in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, where it lives in subtropical or tropical dry shrubland and pastureland. The Wikipedia article that serves as this entry's source says the Scottish zoologist Andrew Smith first described it in 1834 and named it for the Dutch zoologist Anton Brants. It is a fairly large rat with a short, blunt head, males having a head and body length of about 215 millimetres. It lives in a burrow system with many entrances, is diurnal, eats leaves, stems, grasses, succulents and bulbs, and gives a high-pitched whistling alarm call. It is common, stable and assessed as least concern.