rodent question

Question
Recently, I was in Anaheim, CA and saw a strange looking (mouse?) rodent in the tree outside my hotel room window.  It had very large ears for a mouse and typical length tail.  The thing that threw me off was its snout, it was too long and somewhat pointed up.  It definitely wasn't a rat, I have had pet rats before.  It really looked like a mouse, but it was huge, definitely rat size or a tad bigger.  It was gray and had large rounded ears.  I took a great picture of it, that I could send to you since I am sure that would be helpful.  Please let me know if you can help.  Thanks,
Kathy Johnston

Answer
Hello there,
If you could send me the picture, that might be helpful because in the rodent family there are over 1100 species so it would probably be quite difficult to identify the actual species of the rodent you saw. Rodents are found in all continents except Antarctica.In South and North America rodents are the most diverse and they have adapted to live in many different habitats. What you saw could have been a different species of rat to the Norway rats that are normally kept as pets. For example there are 22 species of kangaroo rat and many of these are only found in California. If you send me the pic then I can hopefully try to find out what it is!! Thanks for you question