Greater stick-nest rats (or “stickies” as they are affectionately named) are one of Australia’s most adorable small native mammals.
These guinea-pig sized rodents build large communal nests which can be a metre high and 1.5 metres wide, using their sticky urine to glue sticks and leaves together. Remnants of their nests from thousands of years ago have been found in caves, with plant fragments protected by the urine. They live in arid, almost waterless parts of Australia, and live on fruit and succulents.
