Almost everything that could be said of mice applies equally, but with multiples, to their cousins the rats. Rats are more common in and around our houses than we care to think. Even the best homes sometimes have them. They come in two principal varieties in the temperate world: the emphatically named Rattus rattus, which is alternatively (and tellingly) known as the roof rat, and Rattus norvegicus, or the Norway rat. The roof rat likes to be up high—in trees and attics principally—so the scurryings you hear across your bedroom ceiling late at night may not be, I’m sorry to say, mice.
...more
