The giant kangaroo rat is a rodent,and the largest of the kangaroo rat species. It is still a very small animal, with its body length only about 15cm. Its fur colour is tan or brown and it has a long tail with a tuft on the end. It is endemic to the US state of California and lives in colonies in dry, sandy grasslands, where it digs burrows in loose soil.
The conservation status of the giant kangaroo rat has been "endangered" since the 1980s, due to an increase in agricultural use of the land, and it now lives only in isolated pockets of California.