Rat Facts

Rat Facts

1. The laboratory rat became the first animal domesticated for purely scientific reasons.
2. Rats can eat chocolate .
3. Rats can chew through glass, cinderblocks, wire, aluminum and lead .
4. In 1828 the first albino rats were used in a laboratory experiment to study fasting.
5. Rats are omnivores and will eat almost anything .
6. Most laboratory rat strains are derived from the albino Wistar rat.
7. Female rats can give birth when they are 6 weeks old and are able to have babies up to 12 times per year
8. The Sprague Dawley rat is used extensively in medical research in part because of its calmness and ease of handling .
9. The Sprague Dawley rat has a life-span of 2.5 to 3.5 years.
10. Zucker rats, a model for obesity, are leptin receptor mutants that can weight twice as much as normal rats .
11. Rowett nudes are hairless rats that have no thymus.
12. Fuzzy rats are hairless rats identified in a Pennsylvania laboratory in 1976.
13. The laboratory rat originated in Asia .
14. The oils in cedar and pine are toxic to rats.
15. A group of rats is called a mischief.
16. Rats have bellybuttons .
17. Rats have terrible eyesight and need to use their whiskers to find their way.
18. Inbred laboratory rats are created by breeding brother to sister for at least 300 generations .
19. The rat genome is 2.75 million base pairs long  .
20. Rats do not have gallbladders or tonsils .
21. Rats can't vomit ..
22. Rattus norvegicus is commonly known as the brown rat.
23. Rattus rattus is commonly known as the black rat  .
24. R. norvegicus can grow to 10 inches (25 cms) long excluding the tail and weight more than a pound .
25. Brown rats are bigger than black rats, just like similarly colored bears .
26. Like all rodents, the front incisors of rats never stop growing  .
27. Rats can swim for half a mile in open water .
28. A rat's bite generates 7,000 pounds per square inch (a dog's: 1,000 psi; a human's: 150 psi)
29. Rats don't see in color .
30. Rats can communicate ultrasonically.
31. A rat's front teeth grow 4.5 to 5.5 inches per year.
32. A rat can tread water for 3 days .
33. A rat can survive being flushed down a toilet .

Rat Temple

34. A hindu temple dedicated to the rat goddess Karni Mata in India houses more than 20,000 rats.
35. Rats have been proven to make a laughter-like noise (unable to be heard by humans) when tickled..
36. Laboratory rats can survive 17-20 days without sleep..
37. A rat can fall as far as 50 feet and land uninjured.
38. Ancient Romans referred to rats as big mice (Mus Maximus) and mice as little mice (Mus Minimus)
39. The Bubonic Plague was caused by infected fleas jumping from rats to humans.
40. There are 64 species under the genus Rattus.
41. The Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) rat is the first known animal with inherited retinal degeneration.
42. Laboratory rats should be kept in rooms set at about 70 degrees Fahrenheit and 50% humidity.
43. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the longest lived domestic rat died at 7.3 years of age.
44. The rat is the first animal in the Chinese Zodiac.
45. The Gambian Pouch rat can reach around 8 pounds in weight
46. Rats cannot sweat, so they use their tails to control their body temperature
47. Rats constantly leave droppings in the areas they frequent.
48. Rats are known to carry over 70 diseases, including cholera, typhus and cowpox.
49. In many parts of the world the rat remains a source of meat.
50. Leviticus 11:29, the third book of the Hebrew Bible, states that rats are prohibited as food.
51. Jacko, a 13 pound bull terrier, killed 100 rats in 5 minutes and 28 second in 1862.
52. Rat testicles are 2 times the size of those of a 400 pound gorilla .
53. Rats are considered the second most successful mammal on Earth; after humans.
54. Rats have between 20,000 and 25,000 genes, the same as humans.
55. Sprague Dewley rats, a strain of laboratory rat, can birth over 20 pups per litter
56. A female rat can mate up to 500 times with various mates during a 6-hour period of receptivity .
57. There is approximately one rat per person in the United States.
58. A one-pound rat has between 23 and 32 milliliters of blood.
59. The common ancestor of rat and mouse lived approximately 12 to 25 millions of years ago .
60. The black rat (Rattus rattus) is the species of rat that carried fleas infected with the bubonic plague.  Bubonic plague killed 75 million people worldwide from the 1300s to the 18th century.