In muskrat society, it's rude to not eat with your hands.
Muskrats have brown fur like most of our aquatic rodents, but they aren’t solid brown. They have white patches near the tip of their nose and white bellies, and especially when their fur is wet you can see the white at the base of their brown fur.
The muskrats at Ridgefield tend to be pretty skittish so I was surprised when this one didn’t bolt as I came up on it as I walked the forested section of the auto tour in late spring. The chubby little thing didn’t let my presence dissuade it from feeding plants into its mouth, usually with both hands, and let me watch for as long as I wanted.