I am about to embark on a long term population ecology in rodents. I am thinking of using PIT tags to mark individual rodents. Species weight around 30g to 120g, but there are some that can weigh as little as 15g. What would be the best PIT brand or company to use for such a project.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Lourens
Ask Roland Kays, Research Associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and director of the biodiversity lab at North Carolina Museum of Natural History. He has done animal tracking all over the world. http://naturalsciences.org/nature-research-center/directors/roland-kays
Lourens, I've used Trovan pit tags on black rats, but would be nervous about inserting them on anything much smaller. The Trovans are the best brand I've used.
Cheers
Matt
Hi there Lourens - I have used the Biomark tags in a variety of rodents from Neotoma spp. to Blarina spp. without any problems. I just had a look at their website (http://www.biomark.com/) I thought that they made a 5 mm pit tag, but either they no longer produce it or I was mistaken. Their smallest tags are 8 mm long, but I would have no problem using those on small species. If you do consider the Biomark system, drop me a line and I can give you more details about my experience using them.
Regards
Haemish
Heamish and Matt;
Thanks for responses. Heamish, I like the Biomark system, I had a look on their website and see they have the miniPIT tags @ 8mm. It is still much smaller than the 12mm we can get back home. I think this might be the best system. Will drop you an email later.
Lourens
In the end I used the Biomark miniPIT tags. We have tagged over a 1000 rodents so far with great results.
thanks for all the answers.
Lourens
- Badges
- Science topic