# Evolution of Rat Behaviour



## hrl20100 (May 1, 2013)

Hiya guys 

I have another assignment and again, I am doing it on rats (I mean, why not?).
I have to find out the history and evolution on rat behaviour from its wild counterpart. I am geussing this is the wild brown rat? Or the norway rat? 

I have been using this website
http://www.ratbehavior.org/history.htm

But from what I can see so far, that its only talking about the history on rats, not so much on the behaviour.

Can anyone provide me with some links and useful information on how rat behaviour has evolved?

I'll love you forever!


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## nanashi7 (Jun 5, 2013)

There's a documentary on YouTube I'll have to try and find that discusses at least some part of this...


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## nanashi7 (Jun 5, 2013)

I thinks it's rat life .org


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## ratty_milkshake (Feb 24, 2014)

yes i also saw a really good documentary on rats on youtube. i focusses on their behaviour:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKjvz26FVZs


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## hrl20100 (May 1, 2013)

Thankyou so much!


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## Mattsrats (Feb 24, 2014)

Wow thanks for posting that youtube link ratty_milkshake, I am enjoying watching it myself


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## Leraine (Feb 21, 2014)

Check out the links under "Rat Coat Biology"

http://www.ratbehavior.org/RatBiologyMain.htm

Especially these two links:
http://www.ratbehavior.org/CoatColor.htm
http://www.ratbehavior.org/ExperimentalCoatTempmt.htm

Also check out this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSQwntaYyDg The "About" section of this video also contain a bunch of links to the sources of the information of the video. I haven't looked into those myself but I will paste them here for you.

Sources for this episode:
http://www.boston.com/business/articl...
http://www.lssu.edu/faculty/jroese/An...
http://cbn.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/FILES/root...
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3...
http://ai.stanford.edu/~serafim/Publi...
http://www.animalresearch.info/en/lis...
http://ehs.uc.edu/lams/data/pdfs/9039...
http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/...

A quick google search yielded this book: http://books.google.com/books?id=n4...oGwDw&ved=0CD8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=rat&f=false
"Rat: How the World's Most Notorious Rodent Clawed Its Way to the Top." I only skimmed it, and I don't think the whole book is available on books.google.com but the pages they let you see might contain some info. The table of contents seemed to have a history section. You can also just go to books.google.com and type in "Rat" to see if you can find other books on rats. 

For example, this was another result I found when searching "Rat" on books.google.com: http://books.google.com/books?id=Ps...oGwDw&ved=0CEUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=rat&f=false
The book description says: "This book traces the history of the human relationship with rats from the first archaeological finds to the genetically engineered rats of the present day, describing its role in the arts and sciences, religion and myth, psychoanalysis and" so you may be able to find some goodies in there. 

Here's a nice page on the history of rats: http://www.afrma.org/historyrat.htm I found it on the AFRMA's info page (which is here: http://www.afrma.org/rmindex.htm). 

Also recommend checking this out: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fancy_rat#History
Wikipedia articles are great because of the list of references at the bottom of the pages - something a lot of people tend to overlook. 
They contain a wealth of information that can be more accurate than the contents of the wikipedia article itself (since wikipedia articles are open to being edited by anyone). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fancy_rat#References Tons of info!

Also check out the wikipedia article for regular (nonfancy) rats: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat and take a look at its references.

I think it's awesome that you are doing an assignment on rats because your work may be able to expose some of the wrong stereotypes people may believe about rats, which can help the welfare of rats in the future as people's opinions change. 

You can also mention how this previously wild animal has, in the most recent years of history, have become a great human asset. 
Rats are now used by people for illness detection (Tuberculosis screening http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/health/04tb.html?_r=0),
landmine detection (http://www.apopo.org/en/mine-action/about), 
crime solving by Dutch police (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/dutch-cops-brown-rats-solve-crimes-article-1.1446855),
service animals for people who suffer from muscle spasms(http://abcnews.go.com/Health/womans-service-rat-alert-spasms/story?id=13721547)
and service animals in the area of mental health (http://kingsriverlife.com/06/18/service-animal-rats/)
in construction, to provide internet to multiple schools (http://www.csmonitor.com/1997/0812/081297.home.home.1.html), 
saving families from fires (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/fido-the-super-rat-saves-family-from-blaze-1156186.html),
and of course, countless benefits in the form of loving pets for thousands.

Additionally, scientists are also looking into using rats to help find survivors in natural disaster situations such as earthquakes.


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