Fascinating things you didn’t know about rats
Few creatures in the world inspire more dread than the rat. Long a symbol of death and pestilence, they haunt our nightmares and scuttle in our walls, scaly tails dragging behind them. Rats cause billions of dollars in damage every single year, spoiling food supplies, chewing through electrical wires, biting babies in their cribs – and yet their benefits to mankind have been simultaneously overwhelming…
..Rats carry more harmful parasites than you think. – Leptospirosis, hantavirus and tapeworms are just three of the many infections that rodents can pass to humans through their urine, feces or bites. Another is the botfly larva, which is studied by Tulane University researchers in one of the film’s most stomach-churning scenes. “The fly will land on a rat, lay the egg and then the egg will bore into the skin, basically feeding off you as it grows,” Spurlock says. “Then it’ll push its way out of your skin or the rat’s skin and become a fly. To see that in person is really disturbing.”
On top of the health risks, rats have also been known to cause fires by chewing through wiring. They can even gnaw through wood, plastics and mild steel.
Giant Rats – For those with a fear of rodents, the Gambian Pouched Rat would be an absolute terror. Similar in appearance to a Norway Rat, the Gambian version can grow up to 15lbs. In its native Africa, it is eaten as bushmeat, but its intelligent and tractable nature has also led it to be used to detect land mines. While huge by rat standards, it is small enough to climb over the mines without detonating them. The Gambian pouched rat has also shown a marked propensity for detecting tuberculosis. It can examine a sample of human sputum and declare whether it is infected far quicker than humans can through more scientific methods. Despite its jarring appearance, the giant rat is actually quite approachable and has a growing following as an exotic pet.
How many are there? – It is impossible to quantify the rat population of the world, however their numbers are estimated to be in the billions. Believed to be the most populous mammal,..