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Rats! Rats! Rats!

How gruesome. I haven't come across that before. You do need to keep a close eye on pet rats for tumours though. It's a legacy of their lab rat ancestors that they're very susceptible to cancer.

I've had two pet rats in the past and they were both lovely. They don't last very long though. I'm not sure if I'll have one again.
 
GNC said:
Right, that giant rat in London recently? With the photo? Just a normal rat held close to the camera! Explanation here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/artic...iant-rat-photo-may-not-be-quite-what-it-seems

Seems to be quite a prevalent hoax, with a few examples popping up. Sleep safe.
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Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist.

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Giant rats the ‘size of cats’ were found living on a south London housing estate.

Pest controller Lord Dean Burr made the shocking discovery when during an inspection of an estate in Tooting.

Lord Burr, 36, the self-proclaimed “People’s Lord” of Wimbledon, told the Daily Star were about 2ft in length.

He said the supersize rodents could have grown so big by feeding off smaller rats.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/lond...-on-south-london-housing-estate-a3226916.html
 
Nest of giant rats discovered who are growing huge through CANNIBALISM
THERE are fears an epidemic of super size rats are sweeping the globe after shocking photos emerged of two foot long rodents in British homes and abroad.
By Rebecca Flood
PUBLISHED: 19:48, Fri, Apr 15, 2016 | UPDATED: 19:59, Fri, Apr 15, 2016

Professional rat catcher Lord Dean Burr snapped sickening photos of a family of giant rats which he flushed out of a home in Tooting.
He claims the rodents have got so fat through cannibalism, feating not he remains of fellow dead rats.
The six rats, all living on a housing estate, were discovered during a routine inspection by the pest controller.
Lord Burr said: "Getting six this big in one swoop is unheard of. I reckon we got the majority of the family.
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http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/66...urce=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link
 
"Giant rats" claimed to have been found in a housing estate in Tooting are actually giant swamp rats from the United States.

On Saturday, pest controller Dean Burr who runs Lords Environmental in Wimbledon, spoke to the Wandsworth Guardian as well as ITV, the Sun and the Evening Standard, about seven giant rats he said he found on a job on April 11.

He said at the time: "They were still alive, since the traps used were not man enough to take on rodents of this size and were instead just "stuck" inside the traps. Having walked around the whole site we caught seven in total."

Mr Burr said he believed the rats had grown so large because of the "amount of rubbish and easily accessible food" available on the streets, as well as rats eating other rats.

He also said: "We need stronger poisons and the local councils need to be making sure all residents have bin storage to cut down the amount of plastic bags left outside houses, as this all provides foods to fatten them up."

Since then, eagle-eyed Mumsnet users from Wandsworth have spotted the same image Mr Burr sent the newspapers on the National Geographic website, from 2013.

http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/...hoax__that_fooled_the_national_papers_and_us/
 
More giant rat mayhem in the news, striking terror in the housing estates of Dublin (and Cork) now. I hate rats, they're one of the only living creatures I get scared of, but fortunately with 7 cats I haven't seen a live one in quite a while now. We found a dead black rat last year, I didn't want the animals pecking at it and then coming indoors, especially the cats and dogs, so dug a small hole, poured petrol on it and cremated it!

Families on housing estate left in terror by rats 'the size of dogs'
Laura Larkin
Published 20/04/2016 | 02:30

It comes as Cork residents were warned to be wary of rodents after an elderly man was bitten by a rat while using the toilet.
Locals in Kilcronan Court estate in Clondalkin say the estate has been overrun with large rats for nearly a month.
Residents are growing increasingly frustrated at the slow response to the problem. The estate is managed by the housing agency Cooperative Housing Ireland.
Local woman Marianne Maughan said she had seen a rodent the "size of a Chihuahua dog" in the estate during the day.
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http://www.independent.ie/irish-new...terror-by-rats-the-size-of-dogs-34642870.html
 
Those Tooting rat pics are apparently really pics of Louisiana swamp rats.

I'm not convinced by Lord Burr's title either.

Incidentally, rats can puff themselves up just like cats when they're feeling aggressive so they appear larger than they are.
 
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Another hoax?

Residents of a Dublin estate say they're plagued by giant rats
One woman says one was killed “with an axe”.

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RESIDENTS OF AN estate in Clondalkin say they are being plagued by giant rats.

A Facebook post showing one of the rats in Kilcronan Court has been shared thousands of times over the last two days, with residents demanding action.

One woman, identified only as Lisa, spoke to 98FM’s Dublin Talks saying that the rats in the area were “bigger than cats”.

She said that locals had taken matters into their own hands and killed one of the rats with an axe. ...

http://www.thejournal.ie/rats-kilcronan-estate-clondalkin-2726270-Apr2016/?utm_source=shortlink
 
That Dublin rat's as tall as she is. Or closer to the camera than she is.
 
I suspect that there are biological reasons to think that rats can't grow to such excessive sizes, although my mother was rather insistent that the rats in our farmhouse were immense. I personally suspect they were just heavy on their feet whilst scurrying about in a very old house.

As a positive add on to the rats' tales, when I was first given someone to keep an eye on me, as a "vulnerable" adult, I was talking to him about a puppy that we had and how he and I one morning watched together a rat faffing about on the kitchen patio. I described how this rat's eyes sparkled darkly in the dawn light and he (the support worker, not the puppy) turned round and said he had never before heard a rat described so poetically. I countered with the fact I wasn't being fanciful or poetic, I was simply describing how a rat's dark and protruding eyes caught and reflected the early morning sun. It happened to be also a very pretty and very well fed rat with a shiny coat and tubby tummy. Country rats: happy little sods!

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Mama rat saves baby from snake's jaws

A mother's instincts are strong. She knows when to comfort her children, when to encourage them, when to relentlessly prod them that it's time to cast off their ridiculous, self-indulgent single lives and settle down and give her grandkids.

And she knows when to protect them ... like when they're about to be eaten by a snake.

It's science. And if you needed proof, here it is. Witness mama rat, with an assist from Facebook user Rojas Montecino Evy:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/offbeat/mama-rat-saves-baby-from-snakes-jaws/ar-AAi5FLl

vid at link
 
I read that this morning. Funny how it's called Man v Rat or summat, when the people who may have actually won are a married lesbian couple! :D
 
This has made my week:
a 2014 study from Columbia University found that the average New York City subway rat carried 18 viruses previously unknown to science
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As a counterpoint to the image of the evil, disease-spreading vermin, the novel Shantaram contains accounts of gigantic swarms of rats that swept rapidly across the Mumbai slums at night and removed every single shred of rubbish from the paths and byways, almost sterilising the area. Apparently they'd ignore anyone who was standing still while they flooded past, but if you tripped over they'd reduce you to a skeleton in less than a minute. I know that the author was accused of stretching the truth somewhat with some of the book's characters, but I'd love to believe that such background details were accurate.
 
Why can't we live in peace with our rat neighbours?

Man v rat: could the long war soon be over?
Rats spread disease, decimate crops and very occasionally eat people alive. For centuries, we have struggled to find an effective way of controlling their numbers. Until now …

Tuesday 20 September 2016 06.00 BST

First, the myths. There are no “super rats”. Apart from a specific subtropical breed, they do not get much bigger than 20 inches long, including the tail. They are not blind, nor are they afraid of cats. They do not carry rabies. They do not, as was reported in 1969 regarding an island in Indonesia, fall from the sky. Their communities are not led by elusive, giant “king rats”. Rat skeletons cannot liquefy and reconstitute at will. (For some otherwise rational people, this is a genuine concern.) They are not indestructible, and there are not as many of them as we think. The one-rat-per-human in New York City estimate is pure fiction. Consider this the good news.

In most other respects, “the rat problem”, as it has come to be known, is a perfect nightmare. Wherever humans go, rats follow, forming shadow cities under our metropolises and hollows beneath our farmlands. They thrive in our squalor, making homes of our sewers, abandoned alleys, and neglected parks. They poison food, bite babies, undermine buildings, spread disease, decimate crop yields, and very occasionally eat people alive.A male and female left to their own devices for one year – the average lifespan of a city rat – can beget 15,000 descendants.

There may be no “king rat”, but there are “rat kings”, groups of up to 30 rats whose tails have knotted together to form one giant, swirling mass. Rats may be unable to liquefy their bones to slide under doors, but they don’t need to: their skeletons are so flexible that they can squeeze their way through any hole or crack wider than half an inch. They are cannibals, and they sometimes laugh (sort of) – especially when tickled. They can appear en masse, as if from nowhere, moving as fast as seven feet per second. They do not carry rabies, but a 2014 study from Columbia University found that the average New York City subway rat carried 18 viruses previously unknown to science, along with dozens of familiar, dangerous pathogens, such as C difficile and hepatitis C. As recently as 1994 there was a major recurrence of bubonic plague in India, an unpleasant flashback to the 14th century, when that rat-borne illness killed 25 million people in five years. Collectively, rats are responsible for more human death than any other mammal on earth ...

https://www.theguardian.com/science...ld-the-long-war-soon-be-over?CMP=share_btn_tw
 
Leptospirosis kills one and strikes two others in New York
15 February 2017

One person has died and two others have been stricken by an outbreak of leptospirosis - a rare bacterial infection commonly spread by rat urine.
New York City health officials have identified the cases - all on one city block in the Bronx.
Each of the three patients was admitted to hospital severely ill with acute kidney and liver failure.
City officials say the cases, occurring in the past two months, are the first such concentrated cluster.

"This illness can be serious but is treatable with readily available antibiotics," said the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
One patient died from the infection, but the other two survived and have been released from hospital.

From 2006-16, 26 cases of leptospirosis were reported in the city, the New York Times reports.
All but one of the victims were men.
During the same period, the Bronx saw the highest number of cases with eight in total.

Officials have taken "immediate measures" to reduce the rat population in the area and are seeking to educate nearby tenants about safety precautions.

Leptospriosis (also called Weil's disease) is spread through rat or animal fluids, and can enter the human body through small cuts in the skin or through the eyes, nose and mouth.
Symptoms include fever, nausea, muscle aches, vomiting, and diarrhoea.
City residents are advised to avoid rat-prone areas, and to always wear shoes while taking rubbish to their apartment building's refuse compactor room.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38976624
 
When I was a kid about 60 years back my farther came home one night and
said he had been walking home and had he passed a doorway a copper dragged him
in told him "the rats are moving" next thing the st is full of rat's wall to wall all
heading the same way like a river, once they had gone he carried on home and
did not see another rat, he did say that he thought he would have been in some
danger if the cop had not pulled him into the doorway, I have never seen anything
like that but don't doubt he saw what he said but have never heard of it since,
though the cop acting as he did makes me think he had seen it before.
 
RaM said:
When I was a kid about 60 years back my farther came home one night and
said he had been walking home and had he passed a doorway a copper dragged him
in told him "the rats are moving" next thing the st is full of rat's wall to wall all
heading the same way like a river, once they had gone he carried on home and
did not see another rat, he did say that he thought he would have been in some
danger if the cop had not pulled him into the doorway, I have never seen anything
like that but don't doubt he saw what he said but have never heard of it since,
though the cop acting as he did makes me think he had seen it before.
Click to expand...
I've heard of something like that, but only in works of fiction.
In a town or city, I can't imagine what kind of predator or danger would cause them to exhibit such behaviour.
 
The ‘Forgotten’ Ratcatchers of Paris Go on Strike
“They only want to be recognized,” a representative said.
By Cara Giaimo MARCH 15, 2017

The rats were cavorting in Paris: citing a variety of grievances, the city’s ratcatchers spent Tuesday on strike. Several dozen workers gathered outside City Hall with a banner that read, “The staff are angry,” Agence France-Presse reports. (They also laid a dead rat under the banner, for effect.)

Among their demands: reinforcements, and payment of last year’s bonus, which was lost in an administrative shuffle. But mostly, The Local writes, they just want a little more respect. “They only want to be recognized,” union representative Olivier Garret told AFP.

“They are the ones exposed to the most difficult tasks… they have always been forgotten, and they have always been the ones to do the dirty work,” he continued. Many ratcatchers have quit over the the past 18 months, the union says.

Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, plans to send each of the employees a personalized thank-you note.

http://ht.ly/HkxS309XQdX
 
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