bush rat (plural bush rats)
- (Australia) Any of various rat-sized rodents and marsupials, especially local species of Rattus. [from 19th c.]
- 2004, Nicholas Shakespeare, In Tasmania, Harvill Press, p. 18:
- The noise ceased the moment I crawled into the attic, but something was rotten in the roof, and a putrid smell and pyramids of chewed cardboard suggested that possums or bush rats had nested in boxes stacked with the previous owner's red and yellow moodscapes.
- The rodent, Rattus fuscipes, of coastal eastern and southern Australia.