Hello members!
Can someone else read this and varify my facts with me please?I sent
this to a gentleman who is about to publish an article in a well
known rat magazine.
I'd just like it proof read!
thanks heaps rebekah.
Please reply to me directly on:
amris_rodents@...




Rats were first domesticated in England (around the late 17th century
to early 18th century?).
Black (roof) rats are smaller than brown rats. They arrived in Europe
before the brown and took to country life quite well, enjoying the
thatched rooves and trees to nest in, and well stocked kitchens. They
are climbers and prefer to live off ground, sometimes taking over
birds nests.
Brown (Norway) rats are land dwellers and adapt more readily to many
more different habitats.

In about 1345 the rats carrying the black death arrived in England -
apparently the species was the black/roof rat.

In the middle of the 14th century in Europe the Black Death wiped out
at least twenty five million people. From the early 18th century
onward there was a reduction in outbreaks and deaths from the plague,
which some experts at the time attributed to that fact that with the
arrival of the brown rat, the black rat, - the primary carrier of the
Black Death - ,had been ousted.

More to the point, the flea which carries the plague - pulex
irritans - which spred the plague liked the blood of the black rat,
but disliked that of the brown. Hence, avoiding the plague and with
habitat change upon the arrival of the Industrial Revolution, the
black rat became less common. The brown, who could adapt better -
which proberly later lead to easier breeding in captivity - soon out-
numbered the black. With the industrial revolution, gone were the
many thatched rooves, with well stocked kitchens and gardens with
many trees and it's traditional food of bugs, moths and beetles,
which the black rat enjoyed and thrived in.
In a short time most of England became brown rat territory.

Brown rats loved the rotting animal flesh at knackers yards, the
house maids food scraps thrown in the yard - they enjoyed th filthy
ports.
They were bigger than the black and it is said the all but compleatly
erradicated their smaller predecessor by way of taking over where
opportunity and man's social climate let them.
Rats are peace loving by nature. They raise young in colonies where
males, brothers and fathers and uncles live together without the
typical territory battles that males from other species have. Females
have a strong maternal erge, where they can foster orphaned baby
rats in their colony.
I guess this close existance with man set the brown rat up as a
candidate for medical research, ultimately to domestication and
selective breeding. Readily avalible, to be trapped by 'pest
controllers' of the time, adaptable and relatively peaceful by
nature, they became domesticated quite easily.