Rat Cunning May Allow For Island Colonization

weighn writes "It was assumed that most rat invasions begin with one or two rats coming ashore from ships. The journal Nature reports that a wild rat, captured and then released on a deserted New Zealand island as part of an experiment, amazed scientists by apparently swimming 400 metres through treacherous open water to reach another island." From the article: "Researchers wanted to know how hard it would be to spot a single invader, and how difficult it would be to capture. Razza had a small radio transmitter attached and was set free on the island. Scientists intended to recapture him within eight weeks, but Razza gave a new meaning to 'rat cunning'. He avoided all the scientists' traps, and after 10 weeks his radio signal failed. 'It would be fair to say that at that point we were worried,' Professor Clout said. The Conservation Department was also worried, as the island had been cleared of rats."

Comments

Just 1 Rat

[powera]

If it's just 1 rat, I wouldn't be too worried. It may be clever, but it can't mate with itself.

Re:Just 1 Rat

[isometrick]

Unless there's frog DNA involved ... duh!

Re:Just 1 Rat

[darkonc]

It may be clever, but it can't mate with itself.

Obviously, this rat was intelligent enough to figure that out too, which is probably why he swam to the next island. it's incredible what us males will do for just the hope of a nice piece of tail.

no respect.

[silverkniveshotmail.]

Should have let the little dude go for his efforts. I mean shit, I know I couldn't swim the equivalent of 400 meters after adjusting for the size difference between the two of us.

Re:no respect.

[ErikZ]

"He speculated that Razza may have wanted female company."

Would you do it for a woman?

As opposed to: No women, ever again?

Somewhere...

[Chairboy]

Somewhere in the world, Jeff Goldblum weeps...

"Oooooh, ahhh... that's how it always starts. Then later, there's running, and screaming, and standing on top of a stool in the middle of your kitchen waving a broom at Chucky Cheese the 'lone' mouse there. You think a single rat won't cause problems? My friend, if chaos theory has taught me anything... it's that nature will find a way..."

In other news:

[bmo]

Male rats were discovered to self impregnate after being told "Go F***k yourself!". In yet other news, Darl McBride is pregnant.

--
BMO

Wow

[Comatose51]

"To our knowledge this is the first record of a rat swimming across open sea, and it's often quite rough water," Professor Clout said. "We assume he did it deliberately, but who knows what was in his mind?"

He speculated that Razza may have wanted female company.

And I thought some of us were desperate!

Rats are surprisingly smart

[putko]

Rats are surprisingly smart creatures. They've been living close to humans for a few thousand years, and the humans have constantly been trying to kill them. They've managed to thrive (not just survive) because they are highly adapted to humans trying to catch and kil them.

They do better on some problems than dogs -- e.g. they don't fall for bait. They are terribly suspicious (paranoid) of any changes in their environment. Supposedly they have "culture" in the sense that a colony of rats (and their descendants down many generations) can learn to avoid certain types of food that they have reason (e.g. humans poisoning them) to avoid.

So it isn't at all surprising that the rat was able to best the humans! I'm surprised they caught the thing at all.

Re:Rats are surprisingly smart

[Anonymous Coward]

Supposedly they have "culture" in the sense that a colony of rats (and their descendants down many generations) can learn to avoid certain types of food that they have reason (e.g. humans poisoning them) to avoid.

They do this by sniffing a sick rat's mouth to find out what it has been eating and then avoiding that smell.

Re:Rats are surprisingly smart

[bm_luethke]

We had rats move in a quite a few years back under our porch. They borrowed into the subfloor of our house, they were eating the seed we feed the wild birds. My mother, not wanting to stop feeding them (she had some notion that they would die without her feeding them -uhh) we had to find another solution. Being hunters and avid target shooter we decided to simply kill them. We set up the bird feeders such that we had a good shooting area at the rats and scouted thier habits to get them when they were feeding (much the same thing we do with deer and such).

We killed well over 30 of the things. At first they simply waltz out to the feeder and we pegged them with the pellet gun. After a while they knew what the noise of the window opening meant so we had to round the animals up 30-45 minutes before feeding time and open the window. They then figured out the lighting so we learned to shoot in our noral lighting (none in that room). They then figured out where the killing lanes were - itwas kinda funny. You could see them walk right up to the line - almost to the inch - and prepare for the run. In one go get one seed. Unfortunatly for them we are good shots and small running targets are fun - still killed them. Changing food sources was not an option - nothing else around here to eat and they didn't seem to take the hint to move.

But, even with a high death rate - after the first month nearly all we killed were small young ones - we still could not remove them. They figured out our traps and avoided them and made it as hard as possible to kill them. We had to learn thier habits, restrict thier food sources to only a certain ones, practice shooting to be accurate enough, and specifically develope hunting strategies for them - in short everything we do for game animals. The thing that finally got them was nature - a 6 foot long black snake decided under our porch (same place as the rats) was a good place to live. Unfortunatly the neigbors killed the snake as a "nasty evil thing" a few months later and kill every snake they find - and they still have rats that refuse to leave thier house - which I say serves them right.

Re:Rats are surprisingly smart

[Inda]

I've had quiet a bit of experience killing rats over the years.

I remember when I was very young we had a pet rabbit. A single rat would steal its food each day. We set an old fashion trap and eventually, when food was scarce, it fell for the bait. We heard the rat scream from inside our house - it was painfully loud. My Dad tried to put it out of its misery with the back of an axe handle. He landed a perfect blow to its head and I've never heard a creature scream like it since. This blow would have smashed every bone in my foot had he missed, but the rat was still going strong... It didn't survive the second blow.

I've also had rats in my roof several times over the years. Blame old Victorian houses for that. Poison is very effective. They will eat it when it's familiar to them and they're short of real food. It makes them bleed from the inside, their body feels cold as a result and they go back to their nest to keep warm. It doesn't take long for them to die. Some rats try and eat dirt to dilute the poison but it rarely works.

I've also bought an electronic trap to deal with them. It consists of a few batteries, some sort of capacitor/coil/spark-plug thing and two metal plates inside. It looks like a shoe box with a hole in the front. When the rat steps on both metal plates at once, it gets electrocuted... They're not stupid though and have never climbed inside in the three years I've had it.

The dirty, filthy creatures have to be admired in their strength and survive skills.

I Like This Version of the Story Better

[TubeSteak]

"It seemed like a good idea. Let a lone rat loose on a rodent-free island and then figure out how to kill it. That way, when other islands are invaded by rats, you'll know what to do.

Scientists figured they'd trap this foot-long varmint in no time.

Eighteen weeks later, they finally trapped it with some fresh penguin bait. On another island."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9756077/
This version of the article just seems to give a much better sense of "How Ironic, Hilarity Ensues" than the submitted one.

And it includes little details, like they used PENGUINS as bait
I can hear PETA cranking up their war machine.

Not invading!

[M. Baranczak]

The rats are not "invading"! They're trying to spread democracy!

Re:CAT Cunning!

[gronofer]

Great, and what will you send to catch the cat?

Re:Easy solution

[DrSkwid]

sorry, the only acceptable story goes like this :

Skinner: (Upon finding out that the lizards he wanted to wipe out ate pigeon eggs) Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.

As an owner of pet rats...

[MourningBlade]

Let me just say that this is not surprising (it is, however, neat). They're mischief, they're wily, and they're single-minded.

Most people, when they think at all of it, would place the rat near the mouse, the gerbil, and the hamster in intelligence. Play with a (socialized) rat for about 5 minutes and you'll see that that isn't the case at all: they're curious about their surroundings, they mess with things to see what they are (new things in my apartment are thoroughly inspected by the rats...whether I'd rather they did or not), and they have a concept of hiding as a means to an end[1].

Also, for such a small creature, they are very hardy and cope well with infirmity. I had a rat who took a nasty fall and sprained a forepaw to where she couldn't use it for about two weeks. Since their food was on one level, water on another, and nest on yet another - with the only way between levels to climb the walls of the cage or jump - I was going to move everything to the ground area when I saw her get up to the top level of the cage (cage is about 4' high) by jumping, grabbing the bars, scrambling 3-legged up the side, jump at the level and grab the ledge with her right side paws, and swing her body onto the ledge...to grab a piece of dried macaroni and casually jump to the bottom. No issue.

This is the norm for rats: they can lose a paw, lose inner ear functioning (ear infections can do that to them), be in a fair amount of pain, and they'll keep going. In fact, rat owners are cautioned that you need to check your rat for cuts and such because they won't make noise to let you know - the noise would betray them to predators[2].

They have an excellent sense of smell and are good at foraging. Also, unlike many other hoarding animals, rats tend to remember where their stashes are. I gave the rats a ritz cracker apiece one night. About an hour later when I thought they'd eaten them, I let them out to play. Two weeks later I'm watching TV when the rats haul their ritz crackers out of some unknown nook in the apartment and leave crumbs on my couch. Also, they don't gorge: they have a concept of "saving for later" - you can keep a full bowl of food for them no problem. The only question of whether or not they'll get fat is whether they like their wheel.

That's probably enough rat propaganda except to say that domestic fancy rats are incredibly cute and love people. a picture to give you an idea of the cute factor.

[1] - many animals that hide do so whenever threatened or fearful. They stop what they were doing, and they hide. When the threat is perceived to be over, they stop hiding. Rats join coyotes and a few other animals in that they understand "cover" - getting close enough to check something out without being observed.

[2] - that is, unless you have a little drama queen who squeaks and fusses whenever you do anything that wasn't her idea. I'd imagine that's a domestic trait.

Re:They killed Razza!

[noc_man]

Well, now its proven that rats are, indeed, the smartest beings on Earth. This was one of their cruelest experiments on us yet.

Re:CAT Cunning!

[hey!]

Rats are tough though; not any cat is going to tangle with one if there is safer prey around -- probably the very critters we're worried about the gentle but efficient rats outcompeting.

I once had a rat killing cat. She wasn't big, in fact she was the smallest cat we'd ever had. It was just that she was just a warhead of bloodlust mounted on a lean, stealthy, rocket of a body. We picked her up as a stray, and there was something not right about her. She grew up into the self-appointed deputy Angel of Death. Granted this describes most cats -- in any feline dreams they may have. But this cat made it her business to murder anything that crossed her path and was less than twice her size.

Cat: "Meow" (Out.)

Me: Out to kill something, are we?

Cat: "Meow" (Out.)

Me: Well, just don't bring in the house.

Cat: "Meow" (What's left won't amount to much.)

Me: Very well, then have fun. Bye.

Cat (departing): "Meow" (Don't worry, I don't like you enough to bring you any presents.)

Re:Life finds a way... (was Re:Just 1 Rat)

[mikael]

I still don't see why they had to kill it instead of just recapturing it. I mean, after such heroic efforts, it surely deserved better?

That rat gained invaluable combat experience that it would have passed onto others. Taking out this rat became essential if we are to maintain control of these islands.