The Giant White-tailed Rat (Uromys caudimaculatus) is an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n rodent

Rodent

Rodentia is an order of mammals also known as rodents, characterised by two continuously growing incisors in the upper and lower jaws which must be kept short by gnawing....

 native to tropical rainforest

Tropical rainforest

A tropical rainforest is an ecosystem type that occurs roughly within the latitudes 28 degrees north or south of the equator . This ecosystem experiences high average temperatures and a significant amount of rainfall...

 of north Queensland

Queensland

Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

 , with subspecies occurring in New Guinea

New Guinea

New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...

 and the Aru Islands

Aru Islands

The Aru Islands are a group of about ninety-five low-lying islands in the Maluku province of eastern Indonesia. They also form a regency of Indonesia.-Geography:...

. It is one of the largest rodents in Australia, reaching up to 1 kg in weight , is grey-brown above, cream to white below, and has a long, naked tail of which the distal section is white (Moore 1995).

Breeding commences in September or October, peaking in December and January at the height of the wet season. After a gestation

Gestation

Gestation is the carrying of an embryo or fetus inside a female viviparous animal. Mammals during pregnancy can have one or more gestations at the same time ....

 of 36 days, a litter of two to three (rarely four) young are born, and remain with the mother for approximately three months (Moore 1995).

Common names

The common name of this species has long been White-tailed Rat or Giant White-tailed Rat. During the 1990s there was a push for such descriptive English common names to be replaced with indigenous Australian names, and accordingly, in 1995 the Australian Nature Conservation Agency published recommendations for the common names of rodents. They compiled six indigenous names for this species: the Yidiny name Durrgim; the Jaabugay name Durrkin; the Gnog names Jikoy, Koojang and Parrongkai; and the Kuuku Ya'u name Thupi. Despite this they recommended the adoption of the name Mati, which is a general name for rats and mice recorded from the vicinity of the Peach River on Cape York

Cape York Peninsula

Cape York Peninsula is a large remote peninsula located in Far North Queensland at the tip of the state of Queensland, Australia, the largest unspoilt wilderness in northern Australia and one of the last remaining wilderness areas on Earth...

. However this recommendation was not prescriptive, and it remains to be seen to what extent it will be adopted.