Chapter 18 16 Rats, Mice and Pet Rats

love-hate relationship ★The original rat In earlier cultures, when animals were tried in criminal courts for some supposed crime against man, the rat was not present because it was tried in ecclesiastical courts.Its fate is in the hands of God and the Church. There are seventy-eight species of rodents in the genus Rattus of the family Muridae.In today's technical terms, they are real rats.Many other species of rodents are also known as rats, such as cane rats, cryptomouses (naked or other cryptomouses), wood rats, thumping mice, muskrats, cloud rats, water rats, agouti, species Surprisingly many, but they actually belong to other genera.It is the members of the rat genus that bring suffering and luck to humans at the same time.

The dreaded black rat (aka roof rat, boat rat, house rat, etc.) has stirred up a collective memory that terrified humanity not so long ago.The black rat must have been tried in the Inquisition; for it probably killed far more people than any war or natural disaster in the history of mankind, and they are the carriers of the Indian rat flea, which infects The plague caused by the plague bacterium, also known as the Black Death. Both the black rat and the plague rat may have originated in the Malaysian region, but because they have spread with humans, there are other places that are often regarded as their origins, such as China and the Middle East.However, the most likely place to have produced this particularly shrewd and well-adapted animal is the Malay Peninsula and the thousands of islands nearby. They have conquered nearly the entire world by sailing across the oceans with the help of ships, and they are still used today. Ships traveled everywhere, and they are still found all over the world.

How many people died from the plague caused by the rat fleas on the black rat is unknown.In the Middle Ages, as long as the plague struck, the whole city could not survive, and all the people disappeared.In Europe alone more than a quarter of the population died, numbering at least 25 million; in modern India between 1892 and 1918, 11 million died The plague of rats/fleas; between 1917 and 1942, 60,000 people died of plague in Uganda.The plague is the most horrific tragedy in human history.Similar records are mostly from Europe and the Middle East.The plague is indeed a worldwide infectious disease, and it is also a worldwide disaster. It is conceivable that the total number of deaths due to the plague must be astonishing.

Neither the germs nor the fleas that gnawed at humans and introduced the germs into them were blamed for the plague's catastrophe.All guilt is borne by those animals whose sight we see in alleys or on beams, or hear their scurrying in walls, and tremble with disgust.As a result, the black mouse became the greatest enemy of human civilization.If it were not for this reason, the residents of Hamelin would not have hired a piper to drive out the rats that infested their town, but if they paid the piper afterwards as agreed If you do it with your hands, things will be much more complete【Note】.

[Note] Piper is a magician who travels all over the world in German mythology.In 1284, after negotiating the price with the citizens of Hamelin (now Hameln), he wore a multicolored coat, played a certain tune with a flute, and led the rats into the river to drown.When it was done, however, the mayor refused to pay, so he took out his flute again, and took a large group of children to a hill outside the city, where they were never seen again. However, the black mouse is not omnipotent.Although they are proficient climbers, there are even better burrowing experts who appear uninvited on ocean-going ships traveling to and from Asia. They are brown rats, also mistakenly called Norway rats (also known as Barn hamsters or ditch rats, although gutter rats may be black rats as well).Perhaps originating from northern China, they not only spread across the world like their dark cousins, but were even tougher and more resilient than the black squirrel, and drove rivals away.Rattus norvegicus are rodents we now see in cellars, attics, farms, suburbs and cities.In the United States alone, brown rats cause at least $100 million a year in damages by destroying food stocks, killing young livestock and poultry, attacking young children in beds, gnawing on wire insulation and causing fires.

★The breeding process Today, the climbing rat we know has been replaced by the burrowing, even stronger brown rat; and we also know that it is the black rat that spread the plague around the world and is currently taking a toll on our industry. It was the brown rat that did the most damage.Yet we cannot bear to look at any one species of voles for long periods of time and recognize or notice the difference.Rats are a nuisance to anyone but a naturalist.However, we still domesticate them. Rats are a baffling exception to the norm of keeping animals.For the first time in recorded history, humans have brought animals back into their care that they deeply loathe and fear.Another exception concerns the mouse, which departs from the general rule of man for domesticating and improving animals he has known in the wild, and which he has loved or even worshiped.Take brown rats and house mice as examples. Humans do recognize their wild types and try to eradicate them with all their might.However, about 300 years ago, humans began to cherish them. This amazing transformation is the most peculiar in the history of human-animal interaction, and it is also the most fundamental love-hate relationship in the history of human raising animals.

Even if some people have positive feelings about house mice, it's not the average person's opinion after all.However, having said that, they do have lovable and valuable properties.Rattus norvegicus has always retained the same species name as the wild type R. Norvegicus, usually white, in fact, it should be said that the albino (albino) eyes are pink, and some have brown and white fur.In recent years, the pet world has bred other solid or single-colored breeds.Every year, people breed millions of white mice for use in biology and biomedical laboratories; zoos breed tons of white mice to feed the birds and reptiles in the garden.Also, they were bred as pets, pleasing millions and millions of people who didn't have the space for larger pets.They are already very clean and tidy animals without any assistance.According to lovers of white rats, they are very approachable animals.

The survival of rats is accelerated whether in captivity or in the wild.Their maximum lifespan is about 2,000 days (this is the case at their longest life), they can start oestrus at 45 days old, the gestation period is only about 21 days, and the litter size is usually 8 to 12 , but as many as twenty-four are known, the pups are weaned at twenty-five days of age, and the mother remains fertile until eighteen months of age.Both wild-type and house mice reproduce in astonishingly high numbers.The house mouse is of course a less important domestic animal than the horse or the ox, and has always carried a repulsive connotation in our language, such as you dirty rat, or betrayal, betrayal, or denunciation. (to rat on), its allusion comes from the mouse will abandon the sinking ship and flee.Still, who wouldn't abandon ship and run away when the ship is sinking?

★Vole Mice were prophetic animals for our ancestors.Mice in the ward meant death was imminent; mice in the house were usually a bad sign.It is said that the human soul is contained in the body of the mouse, the red mouse represents the pure soul, and the black mouse is the soul tainted by sin.Saint Gertrude (Saint Gertrude, [Note]) is the patron saint of the soul, and her descriptions are always related to mice.Pliny once pointed out that if the ashes of mice were mixed with honey, it could cure ear pain, and when used to brush teeth, it could make the breath sweet in the mouth.In England various concoctions of mouse meat were believed to be helpful in the treatment of whooping cough, bedwetting, colds and smallpox.

[Note] AD 1256︱1301, a German mystic, sometimes also known as the great St. Gertrude.She studied at the Benedictine convent in Helfta and became a nun.At the age of twenty-five, she experienced her first mystical experience; in her mystical theology book "The Appearance of God's Love", she described this experience in beautiful Latin. Another, less beneficial, connection with mice is the legend of Hatto, Archbishop of Mainz, Germany.During a terrible famine during the 10th century AD, hordes of starving people came to beg for food at the plentiful residence of the archbishop, but Hatto responded by locking the beggars in a barn and setting fire to them. The whole building burned down, and at that moment a horde of mice rushed out of the barn, and even though Hatto fled to hide in the so-called rat tower in the middle of the Rhine, the mice chased him there and devoured him. Only bones remain.

Like rats, many species of animals are often collectively referred to as mice, such as: dormouse, dwarf mouse, jerboa, jerboa, deer mouse, agouti, rough-haired mouse, broad-headed mouse, nest mouse, wood mouse, However, these mice belonged to different genera. The most important mouse to us is the mouse genus (Mus). There are 36 mouse species in the world belonging to the mouse genus, and the house mouse (also known as Mus musculus) is the most interesting to us. Variety.We don't know where they came from; the small mouse follows humans almost everywhere, so we really can't trace its original range.Ernst.Ernst Walker pointed out in his book "Mammals of the world" (Mammals of the world): The natural distribution range of mice may be from the Mediterranean region in the west to China in the east.The only thing that is certain is: as long as there are human beings, there are definitely traces of them. About three hundred years ago, humans domesticated and domesticated the house mouse, also known to the Romans as the white mouse or albino, which Pliny believed would bring good luck.As with rats, albinism is common (this is actually counterproductive for wild rats, for obvious reasons, since albino rats are more visible, and rats have more natural enemies).Today, even in such a short time (it wasn't that long ago that humans farmed mice), mice have been bred to have different coat colors, markings, and fur patterns that humans desire.Attractive coat color combinations such as solid and variegated are available. The development process of humans using mice is the same as that of rats.Every year, humans breed countless mice for experimental use, or for feeding to pets and zoo animals; in addition, millions of mice are kept as caged pets.But man's ambition to breed more and more beautiful house mice is as active as he destroys wild mice.Mouse mice try to please us (if you happen to be a mouse lover) while destroying food and costing us hundreds of millions of dollars.The amount of wheat, sugar, and other bulk dry food that had to be discarded because it was contaminated with rat feces was not negligible, and if one could add it up, it would be a staggering sum.The relationship between mice and humans is really amazing. Before leaving the topic of mice, we should at least acknowledge that there is a special world of fully human mice.walterAlthough Walt Disney was not the first artist or writer to use the natural cuteness of mice as the protagonist of the story, his first cartoon released in the late 1920s created a nineteenth century for him. A multi-hundred million dollar business with thousands of employees in the 90s.We can safely say that Mickey Mouse is not only the most famous animal, but also the most recognizable protagonist the world has ever seen.Compared with other images of mice, this is of course a more bizarre comparison. ★pets In addition to guinea pigs, rats, and mice, humans have cared for many other rodents, not as food animals, but as pets in cages or on racks.I don't think these rodents are really domesticated by man, but, as a result of mass breeding by enthusiasts, at least man will eventually control the gene pool of some breeds and cause significant variation. We don't know exactly how many species of rodents are kept as pets, but the most common are: the golden hamster in Syria, the chinchilla in northern Chile, and the long-clawed desert rat in East Asia. Squirrels, flying squirrels, chipmunks, grasshopper mice, zokors, nest mice, deer mice, wood mice, lemmings, voles, and grass mice are all small wild mammals, usually rodents, that have, to varying degrees, Domestication, or at least it has become quite receptive to human management; perhaps partly because humans want to have mastery over the animals around them.Whether the animals are happy to accept such an arrangement is out of consideration.If cared for, there should be no so-called abuse, however, we are more certain that these animals would rather continue to live in the wild if given the choice.Of course, their lives will be shortened in this way, and they will all become food for predators.These rodents are not considered domestic animals, and it is questionable whether they will ever be.They are at a disadvantage; they are the most repulsed mammals in the world, and rats are the most repulsed rodents of all.