Top 10 facts about rats
Did you know that rats can distinguish between some colours, but not others?
ACCORDING to Robert Browning’s poem The Pied Piper Of Hamelin, July 22, 1376 was the day the rat-catcher led the children out of the town of Hamelin, Germany, as the town refused to pay him for ridding them of rats.
 
1. In the account of the same story by the Brothers Grimm the date is given as June 26, 1284.

2. The most famous rat-catcher in Victorian England was Jack Black who not only caught rats but bred them as pets or for rat-baiting contests.

3. Black promoted himself as official rat catcher to the Queen. He certainly worked in the royal palaces though he never had a royal warrant.

4. The Hindu goddess Karni Mata is said to have died aged 150 and been reincarnated as a rat.

5. The Karni Mata temple in Rajasthan, India, is home to some 20,000 sacred rats.

6. Rats emit an ultrasonic giggle when tickled.

7. In 2005 Spanish researchers showed that rats can be trained to distinguish spoken Japanese from spoken Dutch.

8. Rats of the species Rattus rattus are black; Rattus norvegicus is brown.

9. It is considered unparliamentarily language for an MP to call a colleague a rat.

10. Rats can distinguish between blue and green but red appears dark to them. They can also be trained to tell visible light from ultraviolet.

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