Oh Rats, Part 2

As much as I hate and fear rats, they are pretty interesting.  Here are some facts about rats that you probably didn't know.  I'm not sure you need to know this information, but I found it interesting.

1.  Rats' front teeth grow 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 inches each year.  They wear them down by continuously gnawing on everything around them, from brick, to cement, to lead pipes.

2.  A female rat can mate as many as 500 times with various males during a six-hour period of receptivity-a state she experiences about 15 times per year.  Thus, a pair of brown rats can produce as many as 2,000 descendants in a year if left to breed unchecked.

3.  A rat can tread water for three days and survive being flushed down the toilet.

4.  There are 56 species of rats.  Many live near humans, but they are often found in remote habitats like marshlands and rain forests.  Some species of rats are even endangered.

5.  A rat can fall as far as 50 feet and land uninjured.

6.  Rats do not sweat.  They regulate their temperature by constricting or expanding blood vessels in their tails.

7.  Rats are known to transmit several potentially fatal diseases to humans, including viral hemorrhagic fever plague, Weil's disease and Q fever.  The good news is that is rare for a human to get rabies from a rat.

8.  Rats don't have gallbladders or tonsils, but they do have belly buttons.

Just thought you should know.