Top 5 Fictional Rats: How They Compare to Real-Life Rats

To celebrate 2020 being the Chinese year of the rat, we will be posting one blog per month dedicated to rats! Here is April’s blog post, ‘Top 5 Fictional Rats and How They Compare to Real Life Rats’.

Remy the Rat

Remy is a rat from the popular Disney/Pixar movie, Ratatouille. This is a tale about a street rat that has a dream of being a famous chef and helps a lowly garbage boy create gourmet meals. Remy loves food and has a strong sense of smell which makes him able to identify different ingredients in each plate of food. How does Remy compare to an actual every-day sewer rat? Well, Norway rats will eat ANYTHING, but they favor cereal grains, nuts, and fruits. Remy, on the other hand, has a taste for finer dishes. Rats do in fact have great sense of smell and some species of rats have been trained to detect land mines.

Master Splinter

Master Splinter is a sewer rat from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle franchise. Splinter is a rat that (due to his mutated powers) has become a martial arts teacher and father to four young “ninja” turtles. Splinter is old and wise and highly skilled in the art of ninjutsu. Splinter has shown to be a very protective and strict parental figure for the ninja turtles, who only wants the best for them. He also has excellent hearing very powerful jaws that can break certain forms of metal. What does Splinter have in common with a true sewer rat? Male rats are territorial and will protect their female counterparts from other males attempting to enter their space. Rats have ultrasound hearing and can hear sounds that are much softer than humans can hear. Rats do in fact have strong jaw power, they can chew through wood, brick, concrete, and walls, but they are not very likely to be able to chew through metal.

Rattata

Rattata is a normal-type Pokemon that was introduced in Generation 1. Rattata is a small rodent that is designed to be similar to what we know as common brown rats. The most notable feature of rattata is its large teeth that grow continuously throughout its life. Rattata must ware down their teeth by gnawing. Female rattata have shorter whiskers and lighter fur than their male counterparts. Rattata can live wherever it can find food and will scurry away from the slightest sound. Rattata and everyday rats share a lot of common traits. Both creatures will live near food sources and have great earing skills. Male rats are larger than female rats, though their coloring and whiskers are basically the same.

Nigel Ratburn

Nigel Ratburn is from the TV Show, Arthur. He is Arthur’s third grade teacher at school and is married to a same-sex partner. Mr. Ratburn was a bit of a prodigy, excelling at multiplication problems from the age of two. He keeps a neat and tidy appearance and is known among his students as being a strict teacher. He is a good-natured and friendly teacher that rarely shows any signs of malice. How accurate is Mr. Ratburn’s depiction of rats? Well, there has been some evidence of homosexuality in brown rats, and few other types of rats. Male rats that showed a preference for same sex partners also showed a tendency to have higher anxiety when completing a maze. Brown rats are also interested in grooming and cleaning themselves, though they can be found living in sewers and garbage dumps, they are very attentive to keeping themselves clean..

Templeton

Templeton is a wild rat that lives on a farm in the children’s novel, Charlotte’s Web, written by E. B. White. Templeton was abandoned by his parents when he was 6 years old and was a bit of a loner and outcast on the farm. Wilbur is the first farm animal to befriend Templeton and give him a chance. Templeton is approximately 16 years old during the time the story takes place, and turns his life around to become a contributing member of the animals on the farm and even helps to take care of Charlotte, the spider’s, egg sac after she passes away. You won’t find any real life wild-rats helping to take care of spider eggs or sharing food with other animals on a farm, and you also won’t find a rat living in the wild any longer than 1 to 3 years.  Even in captivity, a pet rat has a lifespan of about 2 to 3 years.

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