How to differentiate between rat and mouse


Apart from just using

> マウス

or

> ラット

Is there a way of differentiating between a mouse and a rat, perhaps by adding
something to **鼠{ねずみ}**?

From [this
chinese.stackexchange](https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/1317/how-
to-distinguish-between-rat-and-mouse-in-chinese/1322) it seems that in Chinese
they tend not to distinguish, but the top answer suggests that

> 仓鼠 is a kind of pet(one of my friends raise two). Wiki tells me rat is "大家鼠"
> and "mouse" is “小鼠", but I and people around me don't care this.
>
> Of course, in scientific circle, academical researchers will adopt the
> Binomial Nomenclature(in Chinese, 二名法) system to distinguish them.

Is it a similar situation in Japanese, where the average person would just use
the loan words, or not bother making a distinction? If so then what would be
the scientific name for mouse/rat in Japanese?




クマネズミ属｛ぞく｝ is the Rattus genus, to which all "true" rats belong, whereas Mice
belong to the ハツカネズミ属, or Mus genus. These genera are both subgroups to the
sub-family ネズミ亜科｛あか｝, or Murinae.

Now, these are the scientific names, and luckily, in contrast to English,
these scientific names are based on Japanese words, so they do make sense for
common people. If you really need to distinguish between the two it depends on
your situation. If you are just talking in general to common people, for rat
you could either say ドブネズミ, or simply describe it でっかいネズミ, and for mouse you
could say ハツカネズミ, or describe it ちっちゃくて可愛｛かわい｝いネズミ.

In a more scientific situation, or if you think that the other parties of the
conversation know about rats and mice, then you should use the appropriate
name for that particular species instead (if you have to distinguish between
them), as the above mentioned ドブネズミ and ハツカネズミ are just typical examples of
rats/mice, but not necessarily the particular species you saw/bought/whatever.




クマネズミ属｛ぞく｝ is the Rattus genus, to which all "true" rats belong, whereas Mice
belong to the ハツカネズミ属, or Mus genus. These genera are both subgroups to the
sub-family ネズミ亜科｛あか｝, or Murinae.

Now, these are the scientific names, and luckily, in contrast to English,
these scientific names are based on Japanese words, so they do make sense for
common people. If you really need to distinguish between the two it depends on
your situation. If you are just talking in general to common people, for rat
you could either say ドブネズミ, or simply describe it でっかいネズミ, and for mouse you
could say ハツカネズミ, or describe it ちっちゃくて可愛｛かわい｝いネズミ.

In a more scientific situation, or if you think that the other parties of the
conversation know about rats and mice, then you should use the appropriate
name for that particular species instead (if you have to distinguish between
them), as the above mentioned ドブネズミ and ハツカネズミ are just typical examples of
rats/mice, but not necessarily the particular species you saw/bought/whatever.

