Oh rats!

We've had a rat visiting us at night off and on for about a month now. Yesterday I saw it in plain view, we had a moment before it scampered off. It is small compared to many of the rats in Corvallis, making me believe it is young, or a different species. Either way it comes and eats the seeds dropped by our bird friends.

Watching the our rat visitor I began wondering about rats. We had a pet rat as a child, there was a rat problem at the wildlife rehabilitation center I volunteered at (due to some escapees from a failed propagation program intending to create less expensive food for the animals) and I know that OSU had a rat problem last year. I also saw wood rats at both marshes all summer. Are there other rats native to the United States? No. Wood rats seem to be the only native rats, and they aren't true rats. They are from the same family as true rats, Muridae, but from a different genus, wood rats are from the genus Neotoma and true rats are from the genus Rattus.

There is also a difference between the rat implicated in the spread of the Black Plague, not-so-ironically enough the black rat. After the black rat came the brown rat, which is now the dominant species in most of Eurasia. Rats originated in Asia but spread to other parts of the world via humans (imagine that!). The Chinese believe that rats bring prosperity and material goods. Also, rat is the head of the Chinese zodiac cycle In Hinduism, rats are considered a vehicle for Lord Ganasha. At a temple in Rajastan, India, the Karni Mata Temple, rats are considered sacred. This has to do with the Hindu believe in reincarnation and a deal made between Karni Mata, an incarnation of the goddess Durga, and Yama, the god of death, turned all of Karni Mata's clan members into rats before they are reincarnated as holy men (from National Geographic, follow the link for Karni Mata above). In Europe they have a negative association, though that seems likely to have resulted from the black plague. That's a hard association to shake! Many people consider rats dirty and disease carrying but I think this is a misconception. Our pet rat was very clean and Karni Mata has never had a disease outbreak! In fact, I'd like to rescue a rat or two, though as with any other small animal I think about rescuing I realize our dogs may want to eat them.