Rat Topics

• kangaroo rats
• domesticated rats
• brown rats
• pack rats
• pet rats
• male rats
• internal parasites
• poor diets
• micro organism
• mammalian evolution
• norway rat
• xenopsylla cheopis
• rat flea
• genetic tool
• laboratory rat
• rat genome
• wild rats
• many generations
• kittens
• endemics

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Rat, Rat

The group is generally known as the Old World rats or true rats, and originated in Asia.

Examples include the North American pack rats, a number of species loosely called kangaroo rats, and others.

Male rats are called bucks , unmated females are called does , pregnant or parent females are called dams , and infants are called kittens or pups.

Domesticated rats tend to be both more docile than their wild ancestors and more disease prone, presumably due to inbreeding.

Many species of rats are island endemics and some have become endangered due to habitat loss or competition with the Brown, Black or Polynesian rat.

The Black Death is traditionally believed to have been caused by the micro-organism Yersinia pestis , carried by the Tropical Rat Flea ( Xenopsylla cheopis ) which preyed on R. rattus living in European cities of the day; these rats were victims of the plague themselves.

Wild rats living in good environments are typically healthy and robust animals. Wild rats living in cities may suffer from poor diets and internal parasites and mites, but do not generally spread disease to humans.

Pet rats behave differently than their wild counterparts depending on how many generations they have been kept as pets.

Since the publication of the Rat Genome Sequence Gibbs RA et al: Genome sequence of the Brown Norway rat yields insights into mammalian evolution.: Nature. 2004 Apr 1;428(6982):475-6. , and other advances such as the creation of a rat SNP chip, and the production of knockout rats, the laboratory rat has become a useful genetic tool, although not as popular as mice. When it comes to conducting tests related to intelligence, learning, and drug abuse, rats are a popular choice due to their high intelligence, ingenuity, aggressiveness, and adaptability. Their psychology, in many ways, seems to be similar to humans. Entirely new breeds or "lines" of brown rats like the Wistar rat have been bred for use in laboratories.

Bandicoot rats are an important food source among some peoples in Southeast Asia. Reasons why rat meat is not more widely eaten include the strong proscription against it in Halal and Kashrut tradition, and whether it's socially accepted within a given culture.

Mills, J. P. (January 1952) The Mishmis of the Lohit Valley, Assam . The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 82, No. 1. pp. 1-12 The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that rat meat makes up half the locally produced meat consumed in Ghana, where cane rats are farmed and hunted for their meat.

Manuel Vzquez Montalbn, La cocina de los mediterrneos , Ediciones B - Mexico The rat-eating habits of the people of the rice growing region of Valencia were immortalized by Vicente Blasco Ibez in his novel Caas y barro.

In late 2008, Reuters reported that the price of rat meat had quadrupled in Cambodia creating a hardship for the poor who could no longer afford it. Cambodia also exports about a metric ton of rats daily to Vietnam as food.

The Musahar community in north India commercialised rat farming as a exotic delicacy.

Both the Shipibo people of Peru and Sirion people of Bolivia have cultural taboos against the eating of rats. Behrens, Clifford A. (September 1986) Shipibo Food Categorization and Preference: Relationships between Indigenous and Western Dietary Concepts . American Anthropologist, Nathan New Series, Vol. 88, No. 3. pp. 647-658.

People born in this year are expected to possess qualities associated with rats, including creativity, honesty, generosity, ambition, a quick temper and wastefulness. People born in a year of the rat are said to get along well with "monkeys" and "dragons," and to get along poorly with "horses." temple.

The attending priests feed milk and grain to the rats, of which the pilgrims also partake.

For instance, "Rats!" is used as a substitute for various vulgar interjections in the English language. These associations do not draw, per se , from any biological or behavioral trait of the rat, but possibly from the association of rats (and fleas) with the 14th-century medieval plague called the Black Death. Rats are seen as vicious, unclean, parasitic animals that steal food and spread disease.

Their reputation has carried into common parlance: in the English language, rat is often an insult. It is a term (noun and verb) in criminal slang for an informant - "to rat on someone" is to betray them by informing the authorities of a crime or misdeed they committed. Describing a person as "rat-like" usually implies he or she is unattractive and suspicious.

Lovecraft's The Rats in the Walls , or used as a method of torture like in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum.

Occasionally a fictional work centers around rats themselves as characters. Notable works include the society created by O'Brien's Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH , the award winning Doctor Rat , Williard , Rizzo the Rat of The Muppets, and films like Ratatouille.

Fictional works based on the tale that focus heavily on the rat aspect include Pratchett's The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents , and Belgian graphic novel Le Bal du Rat Mort ( The Ball of the Dead Rat ).

Source: Wikipedia > Rat