Rats Facts

Each year, around 14,000 to 24,000 Americans are bitten by rats, with most incidents occurring in urban areas and low-income neighborhoods.

Rats can't vomit due to a powerful barrier between their stomach and esophagus, which is one reason why rat poison is so effective against them.

Rats can tell the difference between two human languages.

Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over a million descendants.

Rats "laugh" when they are tickled.

In a 1998 study, rats that listened to Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major for 12 hours a day showed improved spatial learning in mazes compared to rats exposed to silence or white noise.

A rat can fall from a five story building without injury.

Warren Beatty once worked as a rat-catcher!

In scientific experiments, rats consistently chose to free their trapped companions from cages, even when chocolate was offered as an alternative. They would then share the chocolate with their freed friend.

Ronin is an African giant pouched rat, roughly the size of a small cat. Belgian charity APOPO trained him to sniff out landmines in Cambodia. From 2021 to 2025, he found 109 landmines and 15 other unexploded devices there. That broke the Guinness World Record set by his predecessor Magawa. A rat clears a tennis-court area in 30 minutes. A human deminer takes up to four days.

African giant pouched rats can screen 100 TB sputum samples in under 20 minutes. A lab technician takes at least four days to do the same work. APOPO trains these rats, called HeroRATs, to spot TB cases standard tests miss. They also sniff out buried landmines. Too light to set the mines off.