These are my two pet rats, Greypatch and Gabool (guess who's who).
They're both male and I've had them for about 6 months, and their previous owner had them for at least a year. Pet rats supposedly only live about 2-5 years so I think they're getting pretty old, but they're pretty active and well taken care of, so I think they've got a while left in them. They're very communicative animals, and definitely have their own personalities and moods, so I decided to do some research on what some of their different behaviours mean.
The first thing I wanted to look into was what the different noises they made are. They have a few separate distinct squeaks (I've heard short quiet peeps, longer drawn out squeals, and loud sharp shrieks), and sometimes make a low growling grinding noise. My interpretations are that the peeps are for begging, the squeals are in protest if they're being handled in a way they don't like or during their play fighting, and the shriek is pain/distress/surprise (the two times I've heard this is when Gabool's tail got caught in the cage door, and when Greypatch fell off the platform in the cage during a scuffle). I have no idea what the grinding could mean. In my research, I found that my guesses for the squeak meanings were correct, and also that the grinding is called "bruxing," and is their incisors grinding together. They do this to sharpen and grind down their teeth (rodent teeth grow continuously through their life), and generally do it either while relaxed or during stressful social interaction. This is a good example of a behaviour having different meanings in different contexts.
The other thing I wanted to investigate was their play fighting. The three ways I've noticed them doing this are: both standing on hind legs and pushing at eachother, one pinning the other on their back, and one mounting the other. I learned from my source that this fighting is a struggle for social dominance, as I had guessed. Apparently this fighting revolves around the rat's rump. Biting or nipping it signifies dominance. Boxing, standing face to face and pushing at each other, is a defensive strategy where the defender is trying to push the aggressor away from his rump. I was surprised to learn that the pinning was not actually a pinning, but the defending rat purposely sitting on their rump to hide it from the aggressor. Mounting occurs when the defender tries to escape and the aggressor catches up to him. Greypatch and Gabool go back in forth in their dominance, but Greypatch usually seems to be on top.
I am personally not a big fan of rate, sorry. I do wonder if the make noises that you cannot hear though. I know that mice make noises that do not register to the human ears when they are attracting a female mate. I also wonder if there was a female rat introduced into the environment if they would start to make more noises or if the noises that you already heard would just start to serve more purposes.
ReplyDeletePosted by Noelle Kellicker
It would be interesting to see how their behavior would change when introduced to a female rat. Perhaps their entire behavior would change or their play fights would become more intense. I noticed that when my two cats (who are also both male) fight one always takes a submissive pose laying on the ground while the other fights standing. I am not sure if it is their behavior or if my one cat who always lies on his back during their fights realizes the other is more dominant. Do you notice that one of your rats seems more dominant? I don't know much about rat behavior as the closest I have come to having rat is a hamster.
ReplyDeletePosted by Caitlin Descovich O'Hare
I think its really cool that you have the opportunity to see a form of animal communication up close. I personally have never read anything about rat communication so I found this article very informative. I thought it was interesting how rats like in the seagull video have many similar signals that depend on context. I also never knew that there was some form of social dominance in rats. I wonder how many of these communication forms are viewed in close relatives such as hamsters or guinea pigs?
ReplyDeletePosted by Nick Gast
I find this article very interesting because not many people would research rats. I worked at PetSmart for 3 1/2 years and my most recommending pet were the rats. They make excellent first pets because they rarely bite. Only time they do is when people pick them up by their tails, which hurts them because essentially it is their backbone you are picking them up by.
ReplyDeleteRats are very social animals and should be in cages much larger than the one you are keeping them in. You need to keep a close watch because rats are also very territorial and will fit another male, even if they have been housed together for a long time, to the death.
Posted by: Em Arsenault
Rhys,
ReplyDeleteIts cool that you took the initiative to look into what your rats might be communicating. Since rats are used in labs for a lot of reasons, I would think it might be easy to find an ethogram or interpretation of calls for them. You mentioned that they are both males, so I'm wondering, have you ever observed a mating call from one of them? I'm curious to know if being raised in captivity has affected this in them.
Posted by Janelle Hayes
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post. Before UMass I never knew anyone with rats for pets. Now, it seems I meet a new one every semester. I like that after doing some observations and forming some hypotheses, you followed up on your study with research. I too think it would be interesting to see changes in behavior if a female was introduced or even a younger male.
ReplyDeletePosted by Austin Gray