Are you squeakin’ at me?
Big Apple rats are just as social as some New Yorkers — and even sound like them, speaking to each other with a distinctive accent, a new study found.
“Being social helps them survive . . . in some ways, you could call New York City an extreme environment,” said neuroscientist and study co-author Emily Mackevicius, co-founder and senior research scientist at Basis Research Institute of New York.
NYC rats travel in packs of up to 20, and even help each other find food in the concrete jungle, the scientists found.
“They’re pretty tough, adaptable and smart. There are a lot of parallels between the character of the rats and New Yorkers as people.”
Researchers studied colonies of rattus norvegicus — a.k.a. Norway or brown rats — three weeks last July in Union Square Station, Central Park and West 125th Street, using thermal cameras to track their every movement.
The researchers used ultrasonic microphones to eavesdrop on how rats communicate with each other — which sounded like “whistling” not normally audible to the human ear.
In Harlem they observed one community-minded rat squeak out an “alarm call” after discovering a trash bag filled with food – to alert his comrades to his curbside feast.
“Inside of that trash bag it’s screaming for tens of seconds,” said co-author Ralph Peterson, a computational neuroscientist. “Maybe it has something to do about the types of food it found.”
Scientists have long known NYC rats are far more sophisticated than their cousins living in the sticks.
Previous research found their genetic makeup shifted in response to city life – with “uptown” and “downtown” rats even being genetically distinct – while Midtown rats were often inbred.
The new study also found Gotham rats have a trademark squeak.
“They speak this kind of characteristic twang. So effectively there’s this kind of like dialect if you will,” said Peterson.
“They’re more like us than we may appreciate,” he admitted. “I have a deeper respect for the rats. They’re smarter than we think, they’re more sociable than we think.”
Manhattan, unsurprisingly, is the borough with the highest density of reported rat sightings, the researchers noted – approximately 200 rats per square mile.
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