BROWN RAT (VIDEO)!

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I knew our rat(s) would succumb in the end. I say rat(s) because where there's one, there's another.

Thought I'd try to tempt the lil' blighter out from under next doors' shed (or out from our compost heap), with a tasty slice of wholemeal. (It ignored the bits of leftover fruit I lobbed on the heap after making my morning smoothie).

The Brown rat. Rattus norvegicus. (Came over from Norway, so it did).

Outside of the ice caps of the poles, the only place you'll not find this evolutionary king, is strangely enough in the province of Alberta, in Canada... (type Alberta and Rat into google - you'll see why Alberta is rat free... at the moment)!

Some ratty facts for you:

1) The Brown rat as a species, seemed to first live around Mongolia.

2) It has followed the human popuation around for hundreds of years, but only reached western Europe around 1727ad.

3) There are an estimated 150million rats in the USA.

4) There are more rats than people in the UK.

5) The rat can swim for 72 hours non-stop.

6) The rat can jump down 50 foot with no ill effect.

7) It can leap 3 foot into the air.

8) It can climb vertical surfaces.

9) A rat can survive longer than a camel without water.

10) A rat will eat anything. Edible or inedible!

11) The rat becomes sexually mature at three months.

12) Rats have sex up to twenty times a day and are extremely promiscuous. An on-heat female can easily have sex five hundred times, with a barnyard of different males, producing twelve litters of twenty-two young each year, most of which are breeding themselves well before the year is up...

13) Rats consume about one fifth of ALL the food produced in the world each year.

14) Rats urinate on one another to show affection.

15) Rats are resourceful, intelligent, quick to learn and have excellent memories.

16) Rats seem to have a sense of fun, and an ultrasound giggle.

17) If a rat jumps up at you, its not attacking you, its aiming at the sunlight over your shoulder...

18) You are STILL more than twice as likely to win the lottery, as you are to catch Weils disease (Leptospirosis) from a rat. (Providing you play the lottery).

Thats rats.

I'll try and get another, better photograph (or video) before too long, but for now, I'll leave you with an extremely short video (about 4 seconds long) of this unbeatable evolutionary success story, in our compost heap, this afternoon...