Amazing superpowers make rats absolute legends

For thousands of years, rats have haunted the darkest corners of our cities and our minds. They're often blamed for death and disease (and thought to be just plain icky), but there's so much more to the story.

Underneath the drab coat of Rattus norvegicus (a.k.a. the street rat, sewer rat or common rat) beats the heart of a hero, who has some serious superpowers.

Rat City, a documentary from The Nature of Things, takes viewers on a wild ride into the secret world of the brown rat, celebrating this marvel of evolution and revealing the remarkable adaptations that have allowed it to infiltrate and thrive in the underbelly of human civilization.

Here are six skills that have helped rats conquer our urban landscapes.

They're super breeders

In urban areas, we've set the table for our shadowy rodent friends: our cities are teeming with options for food and shelter.

And that's where the rat's ultimate superpower rapid-fire reproduction comes into play.

Hidden away in warm, dry nests, rat moms give birth to litters of an average of around eight pups. The babies are born furless, blind, deaf and completely dependent on their mother but not for long. At just three to four weeks old, pups have a full coat of fur and start fending for themselves, allowing their mother to start the whole cycle again.

She can mate up to 500 times with competing males during the six hours she's in heat. If conditions are ideal, a single female can produce up to 15,000 descendents in just a year.

15,000 rat descendants in a single year | Rat City

2 years ago

Duration 2:15

Rat moms give birth to about 8 babies per litter. After 3-4 weeks, those babies set out on their own and mom can breed again, meaning one female rat could have 15,000 descendants in a single year.

They're masters of detox

The thousands of kilometres of sewer pipes beneath each of our big cities are used as "rat highways," allowing them to reach every corner of our urban areas.

It's a crappy commute, but thanks to their supercharged evolution, brown rats have developed genes that help them detoxify fast.

That means rats don't need to be picky about food-safe conditions. They can nosh on an incredible array of street food (literally) found in trash bins and dumpsters and dropped on roads and in gutters. Rats are super eaters, capable of munching up to a third of their body weight every day.

They go for gold

If there was such a thing as the Olympic Games for city survival, the brown rat delegation would have few rivals.

Rats display remarkable athletic abilities each and every night, all in pursuit of the tasty trophies we humans leave behind.

Brown rats are like mini-gold-medal gymnasts: they have a powerful grip thanks to dextrous finger-like digits, perfect for climbing fences and getting into trash bins full of smelly delights. Like contortionists, they can squeeze their whole body through a gap the size of their head.

Using long, flexible claws, rats can climb walls with ease. While accidents can happen, don't worry a rat can survive a fall from 15 metres. That's about the height of a five-storey building!

They have superhero senses

Whether it's hunkered underground, relaxing in a high-rise luxury apartment, or down on the mean city streets, a brown rat relies on a range of senses to navigate its urban underworld.

Rats are seriously super sniffers. They follow their nose to find food, avoid predators and search out potential mates and have over 2,000 smell receptor genes, that's about 700 more than dogs. They are so good they can detect the location of a smell in a speedy 0.05 seconds.

Thanks to that sense of smell, the African giant pouched rat, a cousin of the brown rat, has been tasked with sniffing out landmines and has put its nose to work detecting tuberculosis. Now, the rodents are being tested out for search-and-rescue operations.

Brown rats count on another superpowered sense to let them know the coast is clear: their hearing. They can detect high frequencies (ultrasound) well outside the human range and use that ability to determine when the coast is clear, that is, when we've all gone home or to sleep. Then they know the city is theirs to enjoy.

Rats are also equipped with a suite of sensors. Long whiskers called macrovibrissae surround a rat's snout and spread outward and forward. The specialized hairs act like our fingertips, allowing a rat to feel its way through the world, even in complete darkness.

Yes, they can swim up toilets (Sorry in advance)

Rats can easily swim through pipes and pop out your toilet. Water doesn't scare them off in the slightest: they can swim for three days at a time and hold their breath underwater for several minutes.

It's a critical skill that rats can use in their relentless search for food and a safe space. Our modern plumbing serves as perfect rat highways, enabling the resourceful rodents to travel from the sewer up into our buildings portals to paradise for these evolutionary ninjas.

And yes, on rare occasions, a determined furry aquanaut will make the journey all the way to the toilet bowl.

They build 'fur-ever' homes

Rats are keen builders with an eye for comfort. They create elaborate underground "rat condos" labyrinths with many purpose-built rooms.

The burrows are just big enough for themselves, keeping out their larger predators like foxes and coyotes. The tunnels lead to nurseries for growing families and pantries for stockpiling food and, in case of a flood or intruder, they always include a couple of boltholes for a quick escape.

It's a communal burrow, and a typical dwelling can be home to a colony of 40 to 50 rats, but burrows have been found with more than 150.

Small city parks, vacant lots, tree pits if there's any available space with good soil, rats are going to take advantage. Even in the middle of the concrete jungle, they manage to find the perfect real estate to make their "fur-ever" homes.

Watch Rat City on The Nature of Things.