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National Geographic : 1977 Jul
Contents
of tons. We have set innumerable and inge nious snares, from simple snap traps to elabo rate devices that guillotine the rat or drown it in beer. We have fumigated, flooded, and fired rat burrows. We have tried sterilization and electrocution, resorted to germ warfare, even tried breeding a better cat. In desperation we have burned down houses to drive out the rats. Yet each day we awaken to the certain knowledge that our implacable foe is still our inseparable companion. Rodents Create a Worldwide Menace If our tactics have been drastic, our cause has been just. This year in the United States alone, rats will bite thousands of humans, inflicting disease, despair, terror. They will destroy perhaps a billion dollars' worth of property, excluding innumerable "fires of undetermined origin" they will cause by gnawing insulation from electrical wiring. In a world haunted by threat of famine, they will destroy approximately a fifth of all food crops planted. In India their depreda tions will deprive a hungry people of enough grain to fill a freight train stretching more than 3,000 miles. Around the world rats and their abundant parasites will spread at least twenty kinds of disease, from typhus to trichinosis to deadly Lassa fever. In Asia, Africa, and the Americas -including the United States-people will die of plague, the dread Black Death that destroyed no less than a quarter of the popu lation of medieval Europe. In several tropical nations rat populations will suddenly explode, and rodent hordes will devastate the land. Last year they overran vast areas of the Philippines, Venezuela, and the African Sahel, ravaging crops, chewing up irrigation pipes, even girdling trees in refor estation projects. "When we speak of rats," explained Pro fessor Jackson as we strolled before hundreds of beady black eyes at his Bowling Green laboratory, "we're dealing with the most numerous and successful mammals on earth, excepting only man himself. Unfortunately for us, the rat's success is almost invariably at our expense. "Like man, the rat is a generalized animal, able to eat almost anything and live almost anywhere, not specialized like the anteater," he continued. "Generalization is the key to the rat's extraordinary adaptability. "The same species that lives in a burrow here and in an attic in Europe may inhabit the crown of a Pacific island coconut palm and not descend to the ground for generations. In a West Virginia trout hatchery, officials found rats diving in and competing for food with the fish. To vary their diet, they simply seized fingerlings. That's adaptation." Dr. Jackson paused before a bank of cages labeled with names of a score of U. S. cities. "These are the notorious 'super rats,'" he said. "Oh, they don't look super. But they are, in terms of survival: They've inherited a ge netic resistance to common anticoagulant poisons. Some can withstand a hundred times the dosage that would kill a normal rat." Dr. Jackson introduced other occupants of his cages. "This is the 'bare-tail squirrel' of California," he said, indicating specimens from San Diego. "Rats love California's lush suburbs, with their abundance of fruit and nut trees. They also nest in the trees-literally filling the niche of the squirrel. "These," he moved on, "came from Eniwe tok. Their ancestors survived the atomic tests -real super rats." The Villains-a Fearsome Foursome Of the hundreds of kinds of rodents around the world, four main species of rats have in timately linked their destinies with man's (pages 66-7). These nocturnal scavengers, along with the common house mouse, wear the label "commensal," meaning literally that they share our table. From their common homeland in Asia, they have hitchhiked on camel caravans and covered wagons, on ships and airplanes, and with us they have con quered the world. Meet them: * Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus). Overrun ning Europe in the 1700's, the "huge mouse" stowed away on vessels of every maritime nation, including Norway, thus unfairly ac quiring the name of that lovely land. This burly burrower is the principal rat of the United States and is regarded by many experts as the most destructive mammal on earth. * Roof rat (R. rattus). Bearer of the plague that decimated Europe, the daintier, agile roof rat inhabits both burrows and above ground nests, often (Continued on page 68) The Rat, Lapdog of the Devil
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