Rachel's Ratties

The Scientific Information-The Norway Rat

 

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Rodentia

SubOrder: Sciurognathi

InfraOrder: Myomorphia

SuperFamily: Muriodia

Family: Muridae

Genus: Rattus

Species: norvegicus

Biological Information-The Norway Rat

Average Body Weight (Males): 350 Grams

Average Body Weight (Females): 250 Grams

*BOTH SEXES COULD GET UP TO 500 GRAMS IN BODY WEIGHT*

Hearing: Sensitive to ultrasound, very acute

Smell: Highly developed

Average Heart Rate: 300-400 beats per second

Average Respiratory Rate: 100 per minute

Vision: 20/600, very poor

Color Vision: Dichromates (A color-vision defect, showing the viewer a red/green colorblindness)

Eating Behavior: Omnivorous (Eats anything, Meat or Veggie related)

Scientists' Findings On Favorite Foods: Scrambled eggs, macaroni and cheese, and cooked corn kernels

Scientists' Findings on Least Favorite Foods: Raw beets, raw peaches, and raw celery

*Active during the night*

*Good swimmers, but poor climbers*

*This species is one of the descendents of Fancy rats, AFTER many generations of domestication through laboratory experiments*

Diseases Carried BEFORE Domestication: Weil's Disease, cryptosporidiosis, Viral Hemmorrhagic Fever, Q Fever, Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (reservoirs of the Bubonic Plaque-MORE ABOUT THESE DISEASES COMING SOON!) 

The Scientific Information-The Black Rat

 

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Rodentia

SubOrder: Sciurgnathi

InfraOrder: Myomorphia

SuperFamily: Muriodia

Family: Muridae

Genus: Rattus

Species: rattus

Biological Information-Shared with the Norway Rat

Life Span: Rats live up to 3 years, four or more if you're lucky to find a healthy rat, although it rarely happens.

Mortality Rate: 95%, due to the predators that hunt them.

Breeding Information: Females can produce 5 litters each year.  Their gestation period is every 21 days, and can have up to 14 kittens in a litter, but only 7 in the litter happens very often.

Location of Habitat: Rats are usually located in burrows, sewers, cellars, and other places in which are inhabited by humans.  In New York City, there are over 250,000 rats, whereas in the United Kingdom, there is a huge population of over 60 Million.

Strange, Strict Behaviors: Rats live in Heirarchal (Those that live of, or relating to, authority) groups, and they never leave more than 20 meters from their nests, but they will range range out if food availability is lowered.  Should food shortage happen, the rats of lesser social value usually die first.

Biological Information-The Black (Brown) Rat

Appearance: Long tails, Black to light brown color with lighter undersides

Average Length: 15-20 cm. long, with a 20 cm. tail

*Also active during the night*

*Poor swimmers, more agile, but great climbers*

*These rats tend to flee "Upwards"*

*This species of rats is rarely used as pets.  Black Rats are decendants of the Brown Rat.*

New Breeding Information: Females can produce 3-6 litters of up to 10 kittens.  Under poor conditions, they only can produce 1 litter per year.

Life Span: Lives up to 2-3 years, depending on whether or not if they survive their habitat, as well as their predators

Sociality: Social groups of up to 60 per mischief, can often be seen

Diseases Carried BEFORE Domestication: Bubonic Plaque, Typhus, Toxoplasmosis, Trichinosis

From the Wild to Domestication

Rats have been around for quite some time, but mainly, they weren't fully noticed until during the era, in which man had grown their own crops.

It all began during the 18th century, in Europe and England.  The Norway Rat had managed to drive away the Black Rats because of their size and adaptation, eventually overrunning Europe's population with these little critters.

Years since then, all of these wild rats had been of the Agouti color.  HOWEVER, these colors were different back then, which eventually brought out odd colors into their capture.

By this time, colored mice also became popular in Europe, particularily in the United Kingdom.  By 1895, the National Mouse Club was founded in England, where mouse shows have begun.

Mary Douglas, the mother of Rat Fancy, stated then that Albino rats were introduced to Great Britian, by a traveling entertainer around the year 1800.  This was also the woman responsible for consulting with the National Mouse Club into staging rats for their first classes in showing, for rat fanciers in 1901.

By 1912, the National Mouse Club had no choice but to rename their society to the National Mouse and Rat Club, but the death of Douglas have cause a decline in rat fancy.  By 1929, the National Mouse and Rat Club, again, had no choice but to rename it to the National Mouse Club, which still exists today.

1976 then came to be the year in which the National Fancy Rat Society, the 1st rat-only association had been founded.  The popularity of the fancy rat had somehow been risen, once more, for another chance to shine.

During these Victorian times, wild rats were caught in huge numbers for the "Rat Pits," a popular sport back then.

Rat pits were a sport mainly for those dog breeds that were raised to kill these rodents.  People back then used to place bets on the dogs participating in the slaughter, with the winner determined by the number of rats killed.

Ralph- The First Rat Successfully Cloned

 


One rat pit owner, a man by the name of Jimmy Shaw, not only owned one of the largest sporting public houses in London, but he also kept and bred strange-colored rats, eventually then selling them as pets.

Shaw wasn't the only one who began the pet rat-breeding business, however.  During these times, rat catchers became a popular occupation, world-wide.  One of these men who held this occupation between the 1940's and 1960's, also captured the strange-colored rats and bred and sold them as pets.

In 1905, the Scientific Advisory Board of the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, invited 10 professors of anatomy and zoology in leading universities, for the purpose of research in Neurology.

One of these men was Dr. Henry Herbert Donaldson, who held the job of organizing the work of their founder, General Issac J. Wistar, who had spent $1 million to establish this institute under his name.  How he had recieved the money to do so, the former brigadier general of the Civil War's Union army had financed in railroad building.

By transferring with his chief assistant, Dr. S. Hatai from the University of Chicago to the Wistar Institute, Donaldson became a professor of neurology, as well as the director of the research.

A year later, Donaldson's attention had turned to the advantages of the rat as a laboratory animal in 1893, when Dr. Adolph Meyer had used them in a course on the anatomy of the nervous system. 

By breeding many generations from strains of the Norway Rat species, Donaldson, Milton J. Greenman, and Helen Dean King created the Albino, or Pink-Eyed-Whites (Also known to Fanciers as the PEW breed of rat).  When pertaining to the Albino in the Winstar Institute, the Albino became known as the Winstar Rat.

1985 was an interesting year for the Clark University of Massachusettes, where they've established the population of domestic, white and brown rats to study the effects of diet, as well as many other psychological studies.  Over the years of study since then, rats have helped science study genetics, disease, effects of drugs, and other topics providing human health and well-being.

S. Anthony Barnett then started study of the rats' learning abilities and mental processes, where he learned that domestic rats' brains, livers, kidneys, adrenal glands, and hearts were smaller than that of the rats in the wild.

October 2003 then became noticed to science world-wide, when the November issue of Science Magazine had issued a successful study of the cloning of an Albino rat named "Ralph," pictured to the left.

How the World Sees the Rat

Isle of Man: In the British Isles, a British proctorate announced that there is a "taboo" against the word, "rat."  Instead, you must say "longtail."

The Year of the Rat: In Chinese Culture, the rat is the first of the 12 years of the Chinese Zodiac.  According to the Culture, if you're Zodiac is the Rat, they consider you as creative, honest, generous, ambious, and quick-tempered, and that you get along with Monkeys and Dragons, and you don't really get along with Horses.

Recognition of the Rat: In India, rats are recognized with Lord Ganesh, the Remover of Obstacles, as a vehicle.  Statues of rats are all about in the Temple of Ganesh, where many go to worship and care for the rats living there.  In Deshnoke, the rats at the Karni Mata Temple, where they were held as reincarnations of the Hindu Holy Men, where they are pampered by the priests with rice.  If you eat the food that is touched by a rat, you are considered as a blessing from God.

Western-Style Speach: Rats are generally negative.  When you say "Rats," you are using vulgar language, because of the Black Death.  In result, a "rat" is seen as vicious, unclean, and parasitic.

You Dirty Rat!:  Being called a rat makes you unattractive, suspicious, or a nark.