Urban rats are getting bigger and bigger

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 Urban rats are getting bigger and bigger


Urban rats do not stop growing, they are longer and fatter compared to other rodents. It is a strange phenomenon that defies Bergmann's rule, which postulates that animals grow smaller the higher the temperature of the environment they inhabit.
If you go to great lengths to avoid coming face to face with a huge rat, we have bad news. Although most of the time they are out of sight, or we prefer to ignore them, the situation can change. These rodents, ancient companions of urban life, are growing like never before.
A group of researchers from the Florida Museum of Natural History was surprised to conclude a recent study. They found that these mammals are growing beyond what anyone could have predicted. The scientists analyzed the evolution of 140,000 measurements in more than a hundred mammals in North America over eight decades.

Urban rats are getting bigger and bigger



Rats getting bigger and bigger.

Roughly speaking, they found that urban rats are much longer and fatter than those rodents that do not live near cities. If we attend to Bergmann's rule, we would find that animals in warmer climates tend to be smaller. In fact, some scientists have warned that rising temperatures caused by climate change are reducing the size of some animals.

"It was something no one expected," says Robert Guralnick, curator of the Florida Museum of Natural History. The study's lead author, Maggie Hantak, considers the increase in the size of rats "a good argument for why we shouldn't assume that climate or Bergmann's rule are infallible in determining the size of animals."

Prior to this research, scientists predicted that urban rats would become smaller over time. The fact is that in cities there is an increase in temperatures as a result of the materials used in construction, such as asphalt and cement. It is a phenomenon known as urban heat islands.

However, the conclusion of this research suggests that the urban environment is changing the bodies of rats from the inside. The researchers believe that the sedentary lifestyle of cities promotes the growth of rats. In this hypothesis, rodents not only have fewer predators, but also less need to forage for food and greater access to high-calorie foods.

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