Appearance
Littledale's whistling rat is very similar in morphology to Brants's whistling rat, but can be distinguished by the structure of the incisor teeth and by the pitch and length of the whistle-like call it emits. Males have a head-and-body length of about 215 mm while females are a little smaller. The ears of Littledale's whistling rat are rather more pointed than those of Brants's whistling rat.Distribution
Littledale's whistling rat is found in some of southwestern Africa's driest area, the fringes of the Namib Desert and the Karoo region, with a total area of occupation of less than 2,000 km2. Its range includes southern Namibia and western South Africa, but does not extend into Angola. It has a rather patchy distribution and may not be able to disperse easily; when a prolonged drought occurred in the Goegap Nature Reserve in 2003, the rat became locally extinct, and the area took about a decade before it was recolonised.Status
Littledale's whistling rat has a wide range which includes several protected areas. In suitable habitat, it is a common species, and seems to be facing no particular threats, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed its conservation status as being of "least concern". The South African Regional Red List has assessed it as being ''near-threatened'', citing its vulnerability to increased periods of drought, and to any changes of ground cover, such as increased grass or decreased shrubs, as a result of changes of grazing patterns.Habitat
The genus name ''Apus'' is Latin for a swift, thought by the ancients to be a type of swallow without feet. The Latin specific ''affinis'' means similar to or related to, but in this case the species that the little swift supposedly resembles is not clear from the description. A population formerly considered to be an eastern subspecies of little swift is now separated as a distinct species, the house swift.References:
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