Luzon Bushy-tailed Cloud Rat

The Luzon bushy-tailed cloud rat, also called the giant bushy-tailed cloud rat, is the largest of its genus and has been described as spectacular. The fur is very long and soft, usually all black though some animals have white patches, and it covers the tail too. It is nocturnal and mainly arboreal, and in many ways it is the ecological equivalent of the large tropical tree squirrels, which do not occur on Luzon. It shelters in stick nests it makes high in the crowns of trees (Wikipedia, general species account; Handbook of the Mammals of the World).

It feeds on various kinds of vegetation. It is found only in the high mountains of northern Luzon, in pine and mossy forest, and is rarer than the northern Luzon giant cloud rat, a shorter-haired species that lives mostly at lower elevations; locally it is still moderately common in oak-pine forest. Hunting and habitat loss are the main threats. It is a high-mountain species on this guide, associated with Mount Pulag, and is very unlikely to be seen without a guide and a night walk (Wikipedia, citing published sources).