SAN DIEGO (AP) – A tiny California mouse now has a big title after winning a Guinness World record for longevity.
A Pacific pocket mouse named Pat – after Star Trek actor Patrick Stewart – received the Guinness approval on Wednesday as the oldest living mouse in human care at the ripe age of nine-years-and-209-days, the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance announced after a certification ceremony.
Pat was born at the at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park on July 14, 2013, under a conservation breeding programme, the alliance said.
The Pacific pocket mouse, which weighs as much as three pennies, is the smallest mouse species in North America and gets its name from cheek pouches the animals use to carry food and nesting materials, the wildlife alliance said.
The mouse once had a range stretching from Los Angeles south to the Tijuana River Valley but the population plunged after 1932 because of human encroachment and habitat destruction, the alliance said.
The mouse was thought to be extinct for 20 years until tiny, isolated populations were rediscovered in 1994 in Dana Point in Orange County but the species remains endangered, the alliance said.
In 2012, the alliance began a breeding programme to help save the mouse from extinction.
Last year, the alliance recorded 117 pups born in a record 31 litters. Many of the mice will be re-introduced to the wild this spring, the alliance said.
