Mike and I met in the fall of 1994. For my birthday that November, he gave me a spiny mouse, which I had said I liked when we passed it at the pet store. We named him Inode. I had no idea where this little guy came from, or what his natural habitat and lifestyle would have been like. He was brown like a gerbil, and had a white belly. His cagemates had tails, but he must have gotten his nipped off in a fight or been born without it, because it was completely missing. He was about 4" long from rump to snout, and about 1.5" in diameter. He had a very narrow nose/face, and big black eyes. His mouth was completely under his snout, so it was almost invisible looking straight on. Oh, and his spines.. the fur on his belly was soft, but the along the surface of his back, he had spindly fur, like quills or spines - hence his name. You could't rub him the wrong way or you'd be pricked (although they're not sharp enough to draw blood, I think any predator getting a mouthful of those spines would think twice before chewing). When we changed the litter in his cage, we often found lots of these spines in his bedding. He had little feet and appeared heavy (dense) when held, like a little breadloaf. He wasn't held much though, because he had quite a taste for flesh, unfortunately. Actually, I did a web search and I think he might be an Egyptian Spiny Mouse, or maybe a Russet Spiny Mouse! Here's some more information about them in the wild. Here's another appearance. Here's a random exerpt from a book, including information on spiny rats, which I've never heard of.

When we first got him, he was perfectly tame, and we used to hold him all the time. One day my sister Rachel (who was 3 years old then) came over and we let her hold him. She was carefully instructed not to squeeze, and was doing a good job, when he suddenly bit her VERY hard. She probably had the smell of something tasty on her hand, and he didn't realize that she wasn't food. She screamed and Inode was flung across the room. He bit me when I picked him up, on the way to the cage.. and then I sat with a crying Rachel, and tended to her finger. He had bit her REALLY hard, right through her fingernail. We decided not to hold him for a while.

I tried to pick him up a few times after that, but I was bitten each time, so he became just a visual pet. When we changed his cage, we scooped him up in a Quaker Oats cylinder. He could easily jump right out of even the biggest ones, so we put the cover on. He was only in there for a minute or two. Mike tried to take a picture of him, but it came out completely blurry. I think he's a sort of mystical creature.. He lived a long time (almost four years). He finally died a couple of days after we moved him to our new house. We're not sure if it was related to the stress of moving, the fact that we cleaned his cage (he looked distressed, so we put him back in his dirty cage, but it didn't seem to help..), the warmth (we had him upstairs for a while, and he was used to being in the basement), or just bad luck. He was a good little guy, except when he was bad, and we miss him.

Note: These pictures came from this article on the spiny mouse (the source of the above picture). It looks like the article was written by Natasha W., someone in a public school in Warransburg, MO. The pictures look like they were taken of the classroom's spiny mouse. Inode looked very similar, except with no tail.

Back to my Pets Page