Facts and information about rats

Since ancient times, rats have accompanied people. Unlike rodents related to rats in the wild, the entire life of rats is closely connected with the life and development of humans. Man tamed wild animals in the hope of receiving benefits from them, but in addition to tamed animals, untamed animals also followed man. These are, first of all, rodents (mice, rats); some types of birds (pigeons, sparrows); some types of insects (cockroaches, bedbugs, house ants). Among such animals, special attention has always been paid to rats.

Man has always treated rats as harmful animals that need to be fought. He came up with various ways to deal with them. In the Middle Ages in Europe there was even an honorable profession - rat catcher. In our time, the development of sciences - chemistry, biology, electronics - has given rise to new ways of fighting rats, but throughout history, rats have learned to resist any type of fight against them and resist successfully, which in itself already indicates the high level of development of these animals.< /p>

Rats appeared on Earth 48 million years earlier than humans. Many myths and legends have been invented about them. Rats have received their rightful place next to humans since the time they began to work seriously with them, conducting scientific experiments. Thus began the domestication of rats.

A domesticated rat is a loyal and kind animal. Comparing it to a wild rat is like comparing a poodle to a wolf. Decorative rats can be affectionate and unusually caring. These animals very readily respond to nicknames.

There are many species of rats on Earth, but two species can be considered the ancestors of domesticated rats: the gray rat (Rattus norvegicus) and the black rat (Rattus rattus).

The gray rat or pasyuk is known as a malicious pest that causes enormous damage to the household. Resourceful, cunning, quick-witted, tenacious, distrustful. Finds a way out of any trap. Can move at a speed of 10 km/h, jump up to a height of up to 80 cm (with such an ability a person could easily jump to the third floor), and in an aggressive state up to 2 m, swim several kilometers (the recorded record is 29 km!), and dive well and it’s great to climb ropes, pipes, and trees. Pasyuki can cover from 10 to 50 km per day. They live in landfills, wastelands and damp basements.

The black or house rat is a sleek, long-tailed rat. Inferior to its wild brother in arrogance and intelligence. If pasyuki prefer damp basements as a place of residence, then the black rat settles, as a rule, in dry attics

One of the representatives of the domesticated rat (that is, tamed or decorative rat) is the so-called blue rat. This is considered a rare breed of decorative rats, which is even listed in the Red Book. The color of their coat is gray-blue.

The most developed animals are those that are capable of contact with humans - for example, dogs and cats. The domesticated rat, according to the results of observations, is in no way inferior to them.

Observations of a domesticated rat

First of all, the rat’s desire to be in human company is noticeable. She, crawling out of the cage, reaches out to meet her owner and sniffs him. Sometimes she climbs up her arm onto her shoulders. And if you take her in your arms, she tends to move onto your shoulders, apparently her favorite place, and she can stay there for a long time and even doze off. At the same time, she does not try to run away anywhere: even if there is an opportunity to leave - for example, to move onto the back of the sofa, then, after walking there a little, she returns again to the shoulder. It doesn’t matter where the owner is and what he is doing – he can even walk along a noisy street.

The rat loves to be scratched – its back, side, face. She freezes, bows her head, closes her eyes - that is, she really likes it. A rat can even play with a person - it, like a cat, chases a bow. The desire to be close to a person not for food, but simply for communication, to play with him and receive affection from him, manifests itself only in highly developed animals - cats, dogs. The rat even displays a sense of humor. She can flirt with a person. For example, she hides under the sofa, then runs out and hides again, and the person, at the same time, is simply nearby and can pet her when she runs out.

Nothing similar is observed, for example, in hamsters - in fact, they do not need human society. The results of similar observations of a hamster confirm that for a hamster a person does not seem to exist at all, or exists as an obstacle that needs to be overcome. The hamster tries to run away at the first opportunity and never seeks to communicate with a person.

Sometimes it seems that the rat understands some words; uttering, for example, the phrase “where is the sausage” changes the rat’s behavior - it immediately runs to the feeder and begins to look for food. In addition, she knows her name and understands the intonation of other words - affectionate or not, and reaches out to the person or leaves.

The rat seems to like the same things that humans do. For example, the smells of cosmetics and perfumes, which cannot be said, for example, about cats. The rat tends to drag in or hide objects made by humans, which cannot be used either for building a hole (rats in general do not particularly build holes) or for food. The rat hid items such as lids, brushes and even a toy castle - she carefully placed it under a rag. We can conclude that rats are simply interested in various objects that are not related to their life, but related to humans, collect them and, possibly, study them. That is, they behave like some people. At least, this behavior has not been observed in dogs and cats.

The rat does not consider its cage a place to escape from - it considers it a home. If the cage is open, the rat can go out and walk on the floor or under a cabinet, but after a while it comes back, sometimes even with “prey” - some object. It would be possible, of course, not to use a cage at all for keeping, but there are dangers in “free” movement: a rat can try the electrical wire “tooth” and receive an electric shock, and, in addition, the small size of the rat and its gullibility can lead to because in insufficient lighting you can simply step on a rat.

The behavior of a rat is very different from the idea of rats as a “cunning predator.” She does everything very carefully, trying out every step or new obstacle, as if she is thinking about it.

I conducted an experiment known as the “Intelligence Test”, described on the website www.rat.ru. A hole was made in a small screen, one that the rat cannot crawl through, but through it it sees a plate of food behind the screen. The experiment consists of the fact that at a certain moment the plate “moves” out of the rat’s field of vision behind a screen to the right or left. At the same time, the rat must understand that it needs to run around the screen to the right or left, respectively. The rat correctly “guessed” the direction of movement in 8 cases out of 10, that is, its behavior in this case is not accidental and speaks of the rat’s ability to correctly imagine how the plate will move. This test is used to assess the intelligence level of animals. The rat showed a very good result.

Some results of observations of rat behavior are interesting because they have no explanation - they can be classified as mysteries that may contain evidence not only of high development, but perhaps also of the intelligence of rats.

For example, a rat uses water not only for drinking, but also for washing, that is, it needs open water, and not just water supplied from a drinking bowl. When she only had a drinking bowl (a small inverted bottle with a tube, closed with a ball), several times the rat dragged an empty feeder under the tube, apparently to collect drops falling from the drinking bowl.

Another mystery - several times the rat behaved as if it understood not just familiar phrases, but speech. Somehow in the first months, near the cage, a conversation began between us about the family of our rat, and the question asked to the rat as a joke, “does it remember its mother,” caused a strange reaction in it - its muzzle seemed to wrinkle several times, as if it was unpleasant for her. Another time, we all left the house together to watch the fireworks and also jokingly asked the rat, “Do you want to go to the fireworks with us?” The rat began to fuss, as if showing that he really wanted to. And when they extended their hand to her and said: “If you climb up quickly now, we’ll take it,” she really quickly climbed up, which in a normal situation she did very carefully, and after a long time of preparation.

But the most mysterious sounds are those that the rat makes. In addition to a simple squeak, she sometimes seems to be sharpening her teeth, as if she is gnawing on something. But the sounds themselves are surprising - it’s not just “turning”, but as if short phrases have different sounds. Such sounds are similar to the language of dolphins or speech in a completely incomprehensible language. Sometimes the rat says this while sitting on the shoulder next to the owner's ear. Maybe she wants to say something?

Perhaps all these are mere coincidences and there is no point in drawing conclusions, for example, about the intelligence of rats. So far, what is being proven here is simply a high level of their development, the manifestations of which I observed not only in domestic rats, but also in wild rats.

Observations of wild rats

It so happened that we had to dismantle an old garage that had not been used for many years. This allowed me to observe the behavior of several gray rats (pasyuks) who settled in this garage.

When the garage was opened for the first time, we found quite a lot of rats there - about 15, which apparently did not expect to be disturbed. They calmly walked along the shelves, and when they noticed people, they slowly dispersed. When the garage was opened again a few days later - the rats were no longer there - they apparently realized that now there were people here and left.

Wild rats have collected a lot of earth and twigs, but, like the domestic rat, they have collected a large “collection” of human objects - spoons, bright labels, pieces of glass - as if they were very interested in this.

Another time in the evening, when we were just approaching the garage, we heard a loud, prolonged squeak next to the garage door. It was as if a “watchman” had noticed us and was warning his people about our approach.

When the dismantling of the garage was in full swing, a large rat suddenly ran out of an overturned barrel. There were four people in the garage. The rat did not rush, but ran in the only right direction - towards the exit and, running out of the garage, turned into the nearest hole. It seemed that, while still sitting in the barrel, she had calculated how she would leave. In the same situation, even the dog behaves more erratically. This was the last rat we saw, the others had left a long time ago, but this one apparently watched us to the end.

Based on the observations received, I can conclude that wild rats build complex relationships in the pack, for example, leaving observers and accurately calculating escape routes.

I found evidence about the behavior of rats and their level of development in various other sources.

Famous facts and information about rats

Rats are trainable. They can be taught, for example, to jump through a hoop. But there are cases where one of three rats was trained, and the other two were simply observed, but they all learned. That is, rats that were not trained learned by simply watching their fellow rats. Professional trainers believe that rats are even better trained than dogs and Indian elephants. Trained rats are said to recognize patterns even when their size changes or when they are surrounded by other patterns.

Experts from the Agricultural University in Tanzania are conducting a unique experiment: scientists train a local variety of rats to search for minefields, dynamite and explosives. Belgian scientist Christophe Cox, project coordinator, says: "Rats are very good, they are smart enough to learn, they are nimble, they like to do repetitive actions and they have a better sense of smell than dogs."

Researchers from the United States have come up with a way to train rats, which allows them to learn to find drugs and explosives.

The intelligence of rats is manifested primarily in obtaining food. They say that rats are clever at stealing eggs. One rat lies on its back, the second rolls the egg onto its chest and then drags it by the tail, and the first holds the egg tightly with its paws. They steal sour cream in an interesting way. One of the rats puts its tail in the jar, and then lets the others lick it.

Rats are almost unaffected by human-made poisons. But, as it turned out, not only because their body is generally resistant to poisons, but because of their behavior. When new food is discovered, rats do not attack it, but choose one from their flock to try the food. Then they wait for several days, and only after she remains alive do they eat the rest. It is known that more experienced rats do not allow young rats to eat poison and push them away. Experienced rats can handle any rat trap - they shake it until the spring comes off.

We conducted an experiment - rats were trained: to get food, they had to press a lever. When they mastered this, the experiment was complicated: by pressing the lever, the rat each time caused severe pain to the other rat and heard its squeak. As soon as this connection became clear to the rats, most of them immediately stopped pressing the lever.

Swedish scientists have calculated that the number of variants of sounds exchanged between rats reaches 5000! A person uses much fewer words in everyday communication.

It is known that black rats were carriers of plague in Europe. All kinds of traps were invented against them, but only... other rats managed to destroy them (and stop the plague epidemics). In 1727, huge hordes of gray-red rats swam across the Volga and “marched” to the west, destroying black rats. They say that biology knows no such battles between two similar species. This is how the plague was actually defeated in Europe.