Rat vs. Mouse What exactly is a rat and how is it different from a mouse? Well rats and mice are close cousins as they’re both part of the same big family. But true rats are only those in the Rattus genus of which there are about 80 species. Apart from that you can usually spot the difference between a rat and mouse as the rat is usually much bigger. But that’s not 100 percent accurate — big mice are often called rats and small rats get taken for mice. If you look a little closer you’ll see other differences. Rats have a thick heavy tail rather than the mouse’s thin delicate one; the rat’s face is heavy and blunt instead of pointed like the mouse; and the rat’s eyes and ears are smaller compared to its head than the mouse’s. And just to make matters even more complicated there are some animals called rats such as pack rats and kangaroo rats which actually aren’t rats at all. 

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