Parus Mouse
One of the smaller mouse species of Ruathawaul makes its home in the Parus Barren. They are a mottled gray and brown matching the ground of the barren. It has hind legs that are adapted to jumping and leaping. Some parus mice are known to be able to jump over eight feet in height. It creates burrows in the hard pan after rain falls and before the ground hardens again. The mouse will pull clumps of mud towards it and kick it backward out of the hole. Burrows are usually shallow and use tunnels with multiple ups and down to pool rainwater and prevent it from reaching the main nest. Mice will mate for a season while a nest of young mature enough to provide for themselves and disperse. While there is little for mice to eat in the barren, plants do provide enough seed for them to survive. However, they have adapted to find the wagons in caravans that traverse the barren that are carrying grains and other edibles.
Using their powerful little legs they can leap straight into the wagons where they will stuff their cheek pouches. Then they jump back to the ground, make a stash, and chase after the wagon to refill their pouches. It is a race for them to steal as much as they can and to move all their stashes to their nest before they are discovered and stolen by other mice. Meanwhile, predators are watching for meals of their own.
Merchants that move a lot of food and grain through the Parus Barren are aware of the problems the mice cause and have tried various countermeasures. The most successful is to use well sealed boxes rather than sacks to hold food and grain. The mice will chew right through cloth, but won't spend the time to get through the wood of a crate so long as the wagon is moving. When stationary, either at night or while waiting for the ground to dry they may rely on small trained dogs or cats. Recently a merchant commissioned a wizard to create an intense that repels mammals, but the merchant was forced to the tail end of the caravan while they were using it.
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