Lately, in only a slight departure from the political sphere, I seem to be writing about rats a lot. I’ve written about their fondness for chewing my electricity and discombobulating my solar panels, I’ve written about the bowling alley they have set up in the attic, I’ve written about their holes. Not their personal private holes—those are probably no more repellent than anybody else’s. Jellyfish and sponges poop out of their own mouths and even rats are a step up from that nonsense.
As a general rule I don’t like to pass judgment on non-Republican life forms anyway. And rats have plenty to recommend them. Our Asian roof rats are frankly adorable. Almost. Thing about rats, though, and it’s nearly universally despised as a fashion choice, is their revolting tail nudity. Nobody likes the tail nudity. Most of us would rate rats several notches higher if they just finished dressing.
Many rodents and all weasels have the social grace to keep themselves fuzzy all over and the failure of the rat to go along with the program is something we hold against them. Upon mature consideration, however, we shouldn’t. It’s just part of the rat plan. Everybody in this world is only trying to get comfortable, and regulating their temperature is big part of that. Most critters have an internal temperature range they need to adhere to no matter how cold or hot it is on the outside. So although rats do use their tails for balance, they keep them hairless to dissipate excess heat. It’s like sticking your leg out from under the sheets on a hot night. (Hot Rats was a great album, though, and liking it, or even pretending to like it, made you cool in 1969. Speaking of thermoregulation.)
I suppose rats don’t actually owe it to the world to regulate their body temperatures attractively. Still, there were so many other ways to go. They could wallow adorably in mud like a hippo, or pant like a crow or a dog, or employ the insanely appealing Big Ears method of bunnies and elephants. You show me a rat with a fuzzy button tail and big flappy ears, you’re well on the way to securing it a more socially acceptable status in the kingdom. Or failing that, they could merely tuck themselves away in a cool crevice like a lizard. We’d be okay with that.
But no. A rat gonna do what a rat gonna do. Rat don’t care. They’re like people that way. People are naked just about all over, even the hairier ones. We’re used to it, and some of us even shave what little we do have, but it’s not a good look. Those ridiculous hairless cats look like wrinkly sausages, and humans aren’t much prettier. Supposedly our unattractive baldness is an adaptation for having to evolve in a drying climate, pushing us out into the hot savannas and making us run around all day for our food, and so we developed superior sweating skills requiring bare skin to cool off efficiently. All sausage-naked and sweaty, that’s us. A whole unsustainable fashion industry had to develop to overcome the horror of that. But it does make us better than almost anybody in the animal kingdom at running great distances, because we can cool ourselves off with our superior stank.
A person can definitely outrun a rat. I’ve done it in my own house although we were not going the same direction. But only the horse is sweaty enough to challenge us in a marathon. Or so it is claimed. Just between you and me, I think that horse is going to break the ribbon at the finish line every time.
My grandmother grew up in a florist business that specialized in growing roses. For some reason that attracted rats and she would always shudder when she’d tell a story that involved rats and their naked tails.
You’re probably correct that if black and brown rats had furry tails we’d think better of them. Native wood rats have furry tails, but are far less prolific than their Old World cousins. No one I know has a firm opinion about them, mostly because no one I know has ever seen one.
Maybe they’re cryptidrats.
Just checked. They’re nocturnal, which is pretty generalized cryptic behavior. Most people around these parts are surprised to learn that there are flying squirrels living here even though they are common. But if you only come out at night and are quiet in your habits and generally nondestructive, people tend not to notice you.
Yeah I’ve shifted from wood rats to flying squirrels. Flying squirrels tend to ruin their cover by living in ever larger family groups if they find a good spot. I’ve known several people who had large groups living in their attics. I knocked over a dead tree that was maybe four inches in diameter. Six flying squirrels came pouring out of a chamber that was maybe seven inches long and two inches in diameter.
Okay. Here’s the thing. Rats don’t do tail fuzz. It’s a personal choice. You and I may prefer rodents with fuzzy tails, but as we are not rodents, we don’t have a say in it. I would prefer if crows were six-feet tall and could accompany me to a restaurant for dinner and chat, and maybe even flirt with me. But it’s not gonna happen.
I have groundhogs living in my yard. I LOVE them! One of them is blond. I especially love when I can recognize a member of my “tribe.” They have furry tails. Would I love them less if they had naked tails? I don’t think so. But it’s kind of a moot point, as there is no way to prove it one way or another. But since they don’t gnaw on my wires and leave me without power, whatever else they choose to do is up to them. They can get tats, biker jackets, and ride their motorcycles up and down the street. I’d actually pay to see that, if it ever happened. I know that there are a lot of people who hate groundhogs with a passion. I am not one of them. I hate outdoor cats, which is another matter. My relationship with raccoons is ambivalent. I love them as long as they leave my fish pond alone. I started out with 12. I am down to 2.
Anyway, I know nothing about rats, nor do I care to, as most people seem to have a negative opinion about them.
If I saw a six foot tall crow I’d be very scared! Or at least looking to put something solid between me and it.
I was very happy I’d read (and remembered) all of Gerald Durrell’s animal books the time I was handed a large box and told it contained a baby heron. Durrell had been given a bittern (a small heron, but still possessing a long neck and a long beak) in a basket that nearly put its beak through his eye into his brain when he looked in.
I stood well back and cautiously lifted a flap with a stick. Pissed off and injured adult black crowned night heron. Closed the flap and drove the boxed night heron to a bird rehabber.
Our neighbor asked if we wanted to come over and see his “hawk,” in a cardboard box in his garage. Apparently it was injured and he captured it, planning to go to a rehabber. When we looked in the box, we saw a nasty turkey vulture.
Oh, Susan! They are NOT nasty! Without vultures, can you imagine the carnage that would STAY on our highways and yards? Vultures are nature’s clean-up crew. I hope he took it to the rehabber after finding out it was a vulture. They are an important part of our ecosystem.
I will always remember the description I read of the call of the American bittern: “Like the sound of a stake being driven in mud.”
Love it!
Ga-LOOMP!
And wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute. I have personally written a bazillion rat posts recently for some unknown reason and nobody gets to say they don’t know anything about rats.
All this rat talk makes me nervous. My son and his girlfriend just bought a house in the Sunnyside neighborhood. I told him to check how accessible the dryer vent might be.
I don’t even know where my dryer vent IS. Fortunately, I don’t use my dryer. Although I suspect it has a vent. Even lizards have vents.
James Cagneysaid it best,”You dirty rat…”
I always wondered if he said that, or we just think he said that. Like how H. Bogart never said “Play it again, Sam.”
But all this aside, Murr — we all desperately hope you can get the rats out of your house! No joke!
Let’s see. I have killed two rats in two days with snap traps and nobody else seems to have shown up since. I’ll take it.
If I believed in Karma (and there are plenty of variations in that belief but I hold none of them) I would be in a heap of trouble from rats, at least from the white female Sprague-Dawleys who might remember my having OD’d some of their ancestors in the lab with phenobarbitol, injected them with radioactive drugs, and then well never mind I’ll stop there.
If rats were more like crows, first of all they would look more appealing, but secondly, they would not only REMEMBER you, but tell all their friends and relatives about you. At least with crows, they would only dive-bomb you. Rats would probably nibble at your extremities in your sleep. And NOT in a fun way.
Oh karma. Mostly white mice for me, thousands of which I poisoned and then dispatched in the lab. When we had the white rats, I could not bring myself to killing them in the prescribed manner, and had to farm that out to the guy in the lab next door in exchange for cleaning his glassware.
Now you’ve got me curious. What was the prescribed manner? (In our lab it was breaking their necks while they were anesthetized.)
Wimps. We broke mouse necks unanesthetized, and that’s when we didn’t drop them straight into a blender. The rats had to be dispatched with scissors, the pointy end going through the neck and quickly snapped shut. I never did that. Now, I couldn’t even do the other.
Reminds me of a lab rat story my brother told me from his grad school days. One of his compatriots suspected that our brains produce a chemical during REM sleep. Finding it could only be done if the subject died while in REM sleep or at least so he concluded. He then designed a contraption, basically a cage with a trap door over a container of liquid nitrogen. The idea was to monitor a mouse and as soon as it entered REM sleep, hit the release for the trap door, the mouse falls into the liquid nitrogen and is flash frozen. He was then supposed to grind up the mouse and see if any novel chemicals were produced. I’m not sure whether fantasy ever proceeded to reality.
Well gee. I don’t know how you control for whether a chemical is produced during REM sleep or…permanent sleep.
Ah yes. 1969. Hot Rats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Rats. Them Mothers is crazy!
Would love to have produced a photo of me peering over the cover like the guy on the cover was peering, but I sold my copy to a record store last year.
And while I was in there looking to see if they still had it, I noticed what records are going for these days. Holy shit. Should sold them one by one on the internet!
I wanted to share a license plate my daughter sent me two days ago, a Maine plate, a bit rusty and well used that has “HOT RATS” as an ID! (but sadly cannot post images here), but you might enjoy something from the album, Hot Rats
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zprYyWMcUGY&t=2s
A continued thanks for your entertaining, well written and enjoyable work!