Rats: some history
Rats and mankind: a chronology
BC
c. 10-12 million years ago (mya) Evolutionary divergence of mice and rats
c. 2 mya Evolutionary divergence of black and brown rats
c. 1000 BC Possible reference to rats in Book of Samuel
AD
c. 200 Probable first description of rattus norvegicus (“mures Caspii”) by Roman historian Aelian
mid-200s First known presence of rattus rattus in Roman Britain
541 Start of First Plague Pandemic (“Plague of Justinian”)
c. 1000 AD The first appearance of the word “rat” (ræt) in literature (in Aelfric’s glossary)
c. 1200 Giraldus Cambrensis is first recorded writer to distinguish rats (ratti) from mice (mures)
1346 Beginning of the Second Plague Pandemic (the “Black Death”)
1553 Gesner’s Historiae Animalium records first scientific illustration of a rat (probably r. rattus)
1615 Famine brought about by black rats in Bermuda
1621 First recorded dissection of a rat
1666 The Great Plague of London
1716 Brown rats reported arriving in Copenhagen on Russian ships
[1725 Brown rats land on Danish island of Bornholm from stranded Russian ships]
late 1720s First recorded appearance of brown rats in Britain
c. 1727 Brown rats cross the Volga westwards in large numbers in Astrakhan
1750 Brown rats first noted in Paris
1769 English naturalist Berkenhout names brown rat mus norvegicus in “Outlines of natural history”
1775 Arrival of r. norvegicus in North America (east coast)
1775 Guide book on domestic rats published in Japan
1828 First use of the rat in medical research
1835 The first zoological use of the word “rodent” in English
1849 Start of California Gold Rush. Rattus norvegicus first noted on West coast of USA shortly afterwards
1856 First documented experimental medical use of rats in France
1861 Interview published with Jack Black, the “Queen’s ratcatcher”
1877 Hugo Crampe starts breeding experiments in work on rat coat colour, confirming "Mendelian inheritance"
1890s First behavioural research with rats by Meyer in USA
1894 Bacterium Yersinia pestis identified as the cause of bubonic plague, with rat fleas as the prime vector
1895 The first group of laboratory rats established at Clark University, Massachusetts
1895 National Mouse Club (UK) formed
1900 First investigation of rat intelligence using mazes (based on Hampton Court maze) at Clark University
1901 Mary Douglas’s hooded rat wins “Best in show” at an exhibition run by the National Mouse Club at Aylesbury, England. Fancy rats incorporated into the NMC
1906 Standardisation of lab rats started at Wistar Institute, Philadelphia
1908 Beatrix Potter dedicates her story “The Tale of Samuel Whiskers” to her pet rat Sammy
1909 Helen King develops first purpose-inbred rat strain in Philadelphia
1913 UK National Mouse Club formally becomes the “National Mouse and Rat Club”
1914 A rattus rattus wins “Best in Show” at a show in Cornwall
1931 “Rat” dropped from National Mouse Club’s name
1950 Anticoagulant “warfarin” developed by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation
1960-63 BBC children's TV series Tales of the Riverbank features Roddy the Rat as one of the heroes
1961 French scientists fly Hector the rat into space
1976 National Fancy Rat Society founded in UK
1978 Mouse and Rat Breeders Association founded in USA
1983 American Fancy Rat and Mouse Association founded in USA
2004 Genome of rattus norvegicus made available worldwide
1997 The APOPO project is launched in Belgium to breed and train Gambian Pouched Rats (Cricetomys gambianus ) as mine detectors
1999 First appearance of “dumbo” rats in pet trade in USA
2006 Lundy Island in Bristol Channel declared rat-free following mass extermination (mainly of r. rattus)
2008 APOPO shows that their rats can be trained to detect TB in humans
2018 Shiants Islands in Outer Hebrides declared rat-free
Articles from the UK NFRS (by Ann Storey):
https:/www.nfrs.org/articles_arrival.html
https://www.nfrs.org/articles_domestication.html
For more information on the introduction of the rat
as a laboratory animal, see Castle's article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A, 1947:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/87687?seq=1
(login setup required, but free to read)