Rat

Comparison of Rattus rattus and Rattus norvegicus

These two species are commensales of the Homme: they adapted and developed in the environment of the human society. Displacements of the Men contributed to diffuse the rats on all the grounds of planet.

Morphology

The species Rattus norvegicus , the surmulot, reached 24 and even sometimes 27 cm. Its tail makes 20 cm. It is gray or brown on the back and blanchâtre on the belly. The white rat is the albino shape of this rat.

The species Rattus rattus , the black rat, has a body of 19 cm and a tail of 22 cm. Its ears are larger than those of his/her cousin.

Compete with between these two species

Historically arrived in Europe at the 18th century coming from India via the commercial boats, the brown rat or Surmulot almost decimated his/her first cousin the black Rat (less large, less large, less early and less prolific) which had brought the bubonic Peste to XIIe century. More easily conveyed by the black rat, it was spread in the world in terrible epidemics during the history.

the Leptospirosis,
the Fever by bite of rat (Streptobacillose) or Fever of Haverill…

The rats attack the food reserves which they devour and soil their dejections. They put in danger harvests in certain tropical countries and can cause ecological imbalances et.

During the First World War the soldiers had to fight, in addition to other problems, against the proliferation of the rats in the Tranchée S.

The rat extermination campaigns, which the authorities in many countries organize, aim to reduce the populations of rats and to decrease the health hazard.

In the dwellings the Cat or certain dogs are used since always preventing the proliferation of these rodents. In the old Egypt, one makes use already of the cats to fight the rats. The Vénitiens brought back Egypt and of Syria of the galère S full with cats ratters in order to éradiquer the rats in the lagoon.

With the Castle of Vaillac, in the Batch (France), a fresco dating from the Moyen-âge represents an invaded tower of rats. At the top of the tower: a crowned cat.

About 1727, with the massive invasion of the gray rat (surmulot or sewer rat), the ratters, as the Affenpinscher, take the place of the cats in Europe. Whereas with the the Middle Ages, the massacres of cats made only accelerate the propagation of the black rats which the chips were carrying the bubonic plague, the civil servants of London repeated the same error approximately 300 years later. Nowadays one employs especially the Mort with the rats, the gas or better, the traps (more ecological and fast), to eliminate the undesirable ones.

Rattus exulans
Rattus norvegicus
Rattus rattus

Paradoxically, the constant fight that the man against the rats carries out obliges those to make evolve/move their intelligence what makes their elimination increasingly more difficult

Regarded as useful

The sewer rats contribute to eliminate waste in the cities. If they were not there, the waste water drains of the big cities would be permanently stopped. The population of Parisian rats devours each day 800 tons of waste organic, it is thus not harmful under this angle but thus brings a very important ecological help.

The players organize in certain countries of the engagements: rats against dogs. The rats of breeding are very much used by the laboratories. Their intelligence is extremely adapted there to make experiments on the behavior and their facility of breeding makes it possible to make them reproduce in great number. It is a Organisme models.

Appreciated for its agility and its intelligence the domestic rat belongs to the Nouveaux pets (NAC). One finds more and more material and food dedicated to this tamed animal.

Cultural influence

Since prehistory, the rat always accompanied the Man and of this fact it is an animal which occupies a very strong symbolic system:

Symbolism

In Occident, since the Middle Ages, its value symbolic system is generally negative, certainly due to the fact that it is destroying harvests and propagator of epidemics. However, he is sometimes also regarded as an animal of the heart, probably because of his intelligence and his sociability. Thus, in China of the South, the rat is supposed to have brought rice to the man while with Japan it is associated with the chance. In India, the rat is the mounting of Ganesh, god of the chance and wisdom. These positive values were also associated with the rat in Occident in Antiquity.

Current expressions

See also: Contenu= [[idiom animalier#R]], [[Expressions in connection with the rat]]

Small rats of the opera
To be made like a rat
A bookworm
Two knaves well met
A face of rat
Hotel thief
Rat of district
To be gueux like a rat of church
To have rats in the head
The rats leave the ship
To be bored like a dead rat
: to feel a muddle
To be rat : to be miserly

Literary representation

Fables

The rat is one of the recurring animals in the Fables of Lafontaine. The writer generally gives him the role of the small people crafty one by confusing many times rats and Souris with the liking of the Towards.

Novels

The novels, like films on the rats, generally belong to the register of fantastic and the horror:

the Tetralogy of the rats of James Herbert with the rats , Empire of the rats , the Den of the rats and The City .
the Emperor of the rats and the crown prince to Bernard Lenteric
Memories of a RAT of Andrzej Zaniewski

Tales

The Tale of the player of flute of Hamelin which envoûte rats to lead them to the drowning. This German fable told in the beginning how the deratisor attracted the rats out the city using a bird call imitating their cries.

Cartoons

The Cartoon the Ball of the dead rat mentions rat like brown Peste.

Method of reading

The method Ratus (with only one T). Method intended for the training of the reading of the whole young children and of which Ratus, a green rat, a little dirty, is the main character surrounded by his friends Mina, Victor, Marou and Belo. Texts Jeanine and Jean Guion, illustrations Olivier Vogel. In accompaniment with the school handbooks Ratus is the hero of a series of small novels " Ratus poche" .

The rat in films

Alarm in Paris! , French telefilm carried out by Charlotte Brandstrom in 2006.
Rats - the invasion begins ( Ratten - sy werden dich kriegen! ), German telefilm carried out by Jörg Lühdorff in 2001.
Willard , American film carried out by Daniel Mann in 1971.
Willard , American film carried out by Glen Morgan in 2003.
My uncle d' Amérique , French film carried out by Alain Resnais, 1980 when the account is intersected with psychological experiments with rats, explaining the behavior of the characters.
Rat of Steve Barron (2000), the father who is transformed into rat.
Ratatouille , 2007. Cartoon film by Disney-Pixar, putting in scene a rat has Paris whose dream is to become chief cook.

In the cartoons where the heroes are mice, the rat, like the cat, often holds the Rôle of malicious the. For example Basil, private detective of Walt Disney, where the rat Ratigan is a gangster chief. Brisby and the secrecy of NIMH is however a notable exception, where all the rats are not malicious but on the contrary particularly intelligent. In the Cartoon the Ball of the dead rat an army of rats invades the town of Ostend.

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