How brown rats crawled off ships and conquered North American cities
Brown rats are the undisputed winners of the real rat race.
New research suggests that they crawled off ships arriving in North America earlier than previously thought and out-competed rodent rivals – going on to infuriate and disgust generations of city-dwellers and becoming so ubiquitous that they’re known as common rats, street rats or sewer rats.
It didn’t take long for them to push aside the black rats that had likely arrived with Columbus and thrived in colonial cities.
After first appearing on the continent before 1740, brown rats took over the East Coast from black rats “in only a matter of decades,” said Michael Buckley, one of the authors of a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.
Brown rats are larger and more aggressive than black rats — and they want to be close to human populations, said Matthew Frye, a researcher and community educator with the New York State Integrated Pest Management Program at Cornell University.
Related articles
OpenAI pauses ChatGPT voice after Scarlett Johansson comparisons
NEW YORK (AP) — OpenAI says it plans to halt the use of one of its ChatGPT voices after some users s2024-05-21Texas pardons US Army sergeant Daniel Perry who was convicted of murder for shooting AK
A Texas man convicted of shooting a Black Lives Matter protestor dead during the 2020 riots has been2024-05-21Jake Paul and Mike Tyson trade insults as they hype planned summer fight in Texas
ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Jake Paul and Mike Tyson traded insults and expletives as they previewed the2024-05-21AP Week in Pictures: Europe and Africa
May 10-16, 2024Prime Minister Robert Fico of Slovakia was shot and wounded while greeting a crowd. U2024-05-21- Jennifer Garner dropped by the house her ex-husband, Ben Affleck, has been staying alone in amid rum2024-05-21
Scientists discover a NEW weight loss shot that could burn twice as much fat as Ozempic
A new weight loss drug could see patients lose double the amount of fat they'd shift on popular medi2024-05-21
atest comment