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Stephenson:Neal:Quicksilver:105:grown from the corpses of rats

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this page will talk about rats

Stephensonia

Fancyrat.jpg
A Fancy Rat and his treat. *Waterhouse men all seem to get their share of rats — Daniel at church, Lawrence at the Castle Qwghlm, and Randy in prison. And being manly men - they mostly take our rodent friends in stride.

“… Then to the Church of St. Lawrence Jewry. “Follow the Drainpipes, find the Amphib’ns,” Wilkins had written. Daniel walked round the churchyard, which was studded with graves, but had not reached the graves-on-top-of-graves stage—Wilkins’s parishioners were mostly prosperous mercers who’d fled to their country houses. At one corner of the roof, a red copper vein descended from the downhill end of a rain-gutter, then ducked into a holed window beneath. Daniel entered the church and traced it down into a cellar where dormant God-gear was cached to expect the steady wheeling of the liturgical calendar (Easter and Christmas stuff, e.g.) or sudden reversals in the prevailing theology (High Church people like the late Bishop Laud wanted a fence round the altar so parish dogs couldn’t lift their legs on the Lord’s Table, Low Church primitives like Drake didn’t; the Rev. Wilkins, more in the Drake mold, had stashed the fence and rail down here). This room hummed, almost shuddered, as if a choir of monks were lurking in the corners intoning one of their chants, but it was actually the buzzing of a whole civilization of flies, so large that many of them seemed to be singing bass—these had grown from the corpses of rats, which carpeted the cellar floor like autumn leaves. It smelled that way, too. ...”*

Authored entries

Wikipedia: Rat

THE RAT
Blackrat.jpg
Rattus rattus
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Rodentia
Family: Muridae

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A rat is any one of about 56 different species of small, nearly omnivorous rodents belonging to the genus Rattus.

The most well-known rat species are the Black Rat Rattus rattus and the Brown Rat Rattus norvegicus. The group is generally known as the old world rats or true rats, and originated in Asia. Rats are bigger than most of their relatives, the Old World mice, but seldom weigh over 500 grams in the wild. The common term rat is also used in the names of other small mammals which are not true rats. Examples include the North American pack rats, a number of species loosely called kangaroo rats, and a number of others. Other rats such as the Bandicoot rat Bandicota bengalensis are murine rodents related to the true rats, but are not members of the genus Rattus. The widely distributed and problematic commensal species of rats represent a minority in this diverse genus. Many species of rats are island endemics and some have become endangered due to habitat loss or competition with Angelo Rantac, black, or Polynesian rats.

In Western countries, many people keep domesticated rats as pets. These are of the species Rattus norvegicus, which originated in the grasslands of China and spread to Europe and eventually, in 1775, to the New World. Pet rats are Brown Rats descended from those bred for research, and may be called "fancy rats." But they are still the same species as the common city "sewer" rat. Domesticated rats tend to be both more docile than their wild ancestors and more disease prone, presumably due to inbreeding.

Rats have a significant impact on food production. Estimates vary, but it is likely that anything between 1/5 and 1/3 of the world's total food output is eaten, spoiled or destroyed by rats and other rodents.

The common species are opportunistic survivors and often live with and near humans. The Black Plague is traditionally believed to have been caused by the micro-organism Yersinia pestis, carried by the rat flea Xenopsylla cheopis which preyed on Rattus rattus living in European cities of the day; it is notable that these rats were also victims themselves. It should perhaps also be noted that it has recently been suggested that neither rats nor infected fleas would have spread fast enough through Europe to have been a likely culprit. Regardless, rats are frequently blamed for damaging food supplies and other goods. Their reputation has carried into common parlance: in the English language, "rat" is an insult and "to rat on someone" is to betray them by denouncing a crime or misdeed they committed to the authorities. While modern wild rats can carry Leptospirosis and some other "zoonotic" conditions (those which can be transferred across species, to humans, for example), these conditions are in fact rarely found. Wild rats living in good environments are typically healthy and robust animals. Wild rats living in cities may suffer themselves from poor diet and internal parasites but do not largely spread disease to humans.

The rat makes a fine pet, known for its intelligence, playfulness and sociality. They are extremely clean. Rats can be taught entertaining tricks, as many other domesticated animals. As with any pet, it is best to seek a rat from a professional breeder rather than a pet store.

Rats in the Laboratory

Like mice, rats (especially albino rattus norvegicus ) are frequently subjects of medical, psychological and other biological experiments. This is because they grow quickly to sexual maturity and because they are easy to keep and to breed in captivity. Scientists have bred many strains or " lines " of rats specifically for experimentation. Generally, these lines are not transgenic, however, because the easy techniques of genetic transformation that work in mice do not work for rats. This has disadvantaged many investigators, who regard many aspects of behavior and physiology in rats as more relevant to humans and easier to observe than in mice, but who wish to trace their observations to underlying genes. As a result, many have been forced to study questions in mice that might be better pursued in rats. In October 2003, however, researchers succeeded in cloning two laboratory rats by the problematic technique of nuclear transfer. So rats may begin to see more use as genetic research subjects.

Rats as pets

In Western countries, many people keep domestic rats as pets. Descendants of rats bred for research, these animals also are called "fancy rats," "coloured rats" or "colour rats." Rat fanciers have developed many exotic varieties. Besides ones with unusual colouring, there have been rats bred that have bigger ears, no fur, no tails and oversized hind legs. Domesticated rats tend to be both more docile than their wild ancestors and more disease prone, presumably due to inbreeding.Rattus Qwghlmian MW.jpg
A Qwghlmian Super Rat
it is to a ship rat what
a grizzley bear is to a brown bear*
Qwghlmian super rats clearly
are a separate species Rattus Qwghlmian***
and follow one of the “tried and true”
evolutionary paths available to an island
species — giganticism.

Fancy Rats have been exhibited in Britain for almost a hundred years. The originator of the first true domestic rats was Jack Black, official Rat Catcher and Mole Destroyer by appointment to Queen Victoria. His rats were bred from rattus norvegicus stock. Pet rats became very popular in the 1970s when the National Fancy Rat Society was founded. Other rat societies have since sprung up in other countries as pet rats have gained in popularity worldwide.

Pet rats live to around 2-3 years of age. Adult bucks weigh around 500g and adult does around 300g. Rats are naturally social animals, and, as pets, are much happier when kept in single sex pairs rather than on their own. Both bucks and does make good pets.

Rats in Culture

Western associations with the rat are generally negative. For instance, "Rats!" is used as a substitute for various vulgar interjections. These associations do not draw, per se, from any biological or behavioral trait of the rat, but possibly from the debated historical association of the rat with the medieval Black Death. Rats are seen, some would say unfairly, as vicious, unclean, parasitic animals that steal food and spread disease. In one particularly infamous example, ravenous rats are used as a torture device in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, and in the movie 2 Fast 2 Furious. The H. P. Lovecraft story "The Rats in the Walls" also deals with rats in a less than flattering manner. When anthropomorphized, rats are usually depicted as selfish, crude and untrustworthy, with the characters of The Secret of NIMH, Ratz and Terry Pratchett's The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents being the major exceptions. Describing a person as "rat-like" usually implies they are unattractive and suspicious. By contrast, mice are stereotyped as cute and bourgeois.

On the Isle of Man the word 'rat' should be used with caution; even today many people may be shocked, and indeed offended upon its utterance. It is considered bad luck to mention this word. The origins of this superstition date far back, possibly to a time when many Manx people lived off the sea, where it was a sign of trouble when the rats were leaving the ship. Local alternatives include longtail, joey, queerfella, ringie and the Manx word, roddan. In recent times, many young people have converted to saying "r-a-t", owing to the influence of British immigrants.

Because of the negative cultural associations with the species, rats are often used in scientific experiments that may damage the animal; many animal rights activists allege that treatment of rats in this context is extremely cruel. The term "lab rat" is sometimes used, therefore (like guinea pig) to describe a person who is manipulated in a social experiment.

More recently, rat has become a criminal slang term for a police informant; in this context, it is used as both a noun and a verb.

Rattus norvegicus 1.jpg
(Rattus norvegicus) AKA Brown Rat * Lawrence Waterhouse * Stephenson:Neal:Quicksilver:Waterhouse family Lawrence's daughter Nina is professor of Qwghlmian Linguistics * Randy Waterhouse encounters rats as well * Qwghlm * Sghr * Outer Qwghlm * Eliza de la Zeur * Galvanick Lucipher * Black Plague