Comments on: Rats!

By: ASHLEY

ASHLEY — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:14:38 +0000

Hi, I own a similar website of yours. I was just wondering if you get a loads of spam? If so how do you control it, any plugin or something you can suggest? I get so much it’s driving me nuts so any help is very appreciated.

By: Slat Rat

Slat Rat — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 21:51:06 +0000

Well, being a former (way former) Comparative Anatomy Lab TA, I had it pegged as a humerous. But wasn’t at all sure about the critter make. So, I checked in with my Comparative Anatomy professor of 30 years ago – no one knows bones better than he does. Anyhoo, he stated that it was a “tweety” humerous. The tweety would be bigger than a dove and smaller than an eagle.

By: JackC

JackC — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 18:16:20 +0000

Well – someone has to say it.

It’s a bug.

By: node 3

node 3 — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 02:00:55 +0000

Rats are totally cute. I don’t know where you get off telling people to lie. They also make great pets.

You’re right that wild rats are pests, can cause property damage, and are potentially dangerous. So are raccoons, feral cats, skunks, prairie dogs, and (as noted) humans. That has no bearing on their physical cuteness.

By: MKR

MKR — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 01:56:31 +0000

Clearly it is the bone of an underpant gnome!

It’s amazing how the perception of something can change depending on visual references available – my first thought was that it was a human bone.

By: DJ

DJ — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 01:38:21 +0000

By: DJ

DJ — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 01:37:48 +0000

Dat is not a bone. It is just a message from some soyten mutual friend what tinks you might oughta do da right ting and you knows what dat is. Have a nice day.

By: Bad Albert

Bad Albert — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 23:41:21 +0000

“Itâ€™s almost certainly a bird bone.”

Maybe that coyote finally got the Road Runner.

By: Bill

Bill — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 21:40:17 +0000

It’s almost certainly a bird bone. My first guess would be a humerus, but it could be a coracoid bone as well, see:
http://www.worldbook.com/features/birds/assets/skeleton.gif
I’m leaning towards the former because the distal end (the elbow) looks very distinct and similar in both birds and mammals. (The distal end is the one over the 6 in the ruler photo).
Next time you have chicken, try a comparison! The chicken bones would be bigger, but similar in shape.
I’m quite sure that it is not a tibia, it looks wrong, and in many birds and small mammals the tibia and fibula are fused together as one bone, which is not the case here.

By: Tony

Tony — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 21:22:58 +0000

It is clearly a Leprechaun. Did you find a pot of gold nearby?

By: Aaron F.

Aaron F. — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 21:06:29 +0000

“Rats may look ‘cute’, but they are not! They are destructive and carry nasty diseases. They also infest areas.”

Humans are destructive, carry nasty diseases, and infest large areas, but I still think we’re pretty cute.

By: Quiet_Desperation

Quiet_Desperation — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 20:37:10 +0000

I’d vote bird. My neighbors had a bird feeder for a while several years ago, and they filled it with sunflower seeds. The birds, for some reason, would pick up a seed and fly to the wire over my yard to eat. Sometimes the seeds fell onto my back lawn.

In the spring, I had a diagonal line on sunflowers across my back lawn. Some were HUGE! Very pretty.

I tried to pass it off as an alien message from space, but no one bought it.

By: richardsan

richardsan — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 17:46:17 +0000

you don’t have any voodoo priestesses nearby, do you?

; ^)

i’d guess avian/rodent specie, too…it is very clean [too?], though….

By: Gary Ansorge

Gary Ansorge — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 17:12:54 +0000

Barber: Rats may not be “cute” but they are an essential part of our ecosystem, recycling all kinds of waste. As scavengers they are of course, prone to collecting nasty bacteria. Whos fault is that? We’re the ones that leave stuff sitting around for them to eat. They are also really smart, considering the size of their brains. I once saw a wharf rat(at a gas plant in Saudi Arabia) sitting on a table eating a sandwich. It was freaking hugh, big enough to hold the sandwich in its paws as would a human, though sitting down it was only about 16 inches tall. I didn’t want to start an argument, so I just backed away, while it watched me with its beady eyes and continued eating. Where’s a rattlesnake when you need one?
Working at a state park as I do, I see people come unglued whenever they’re faced with something icky, such as snakes, throwing rocks, etc. The snake does an excellant job eating rats, mice and squirrels(cute rodents with furry tails).
I like cats for that very reason. When allowed to perform their ecological function, they are really efficient at clearing the local neighborhood of “undesirables” like rats. Cool little killers, are cats. I’ve watched mine play before killing rats and it finally dawned on me WHY cats do that,,,it’s to ensure the rats are healthy enough to be eaten. If the rat doesn’t try hard enough to escape, there’s probably something wrong with it, so the cat won’t eat the kill, just leaves it lying there, dead. Cats are better than any trap and non toxic, like the blood thinners used to poison rats today. Plus, they clean up after themselves,,,

Get a cat!

Gary 7

By: JustAl

JustAl — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 16:35:05 +0000

I’m inclined to say avian coracoid, which is hard to find adequately illustrated on the web (like rats) but this page seems to have both the best photo and the best anatomical illustration: http://tinyurl.com/yx2sc9

Rough guess, from the size, would be medium-small bird, from jay to pigeon size, but they vary in size and shape so matching to an exact species might be tough. I agree with Jack Hagerty – being this clean is suspect. Possibly a cornish hen from someone’s trash. I’d think you’d have to cook or boil it to get it that clean.

If it is a coracoid, this is more on-topic than you might have suspected – the development of the coracoid is one of those details in the evolution of dinosaurs into birds that paleontologists pay attention to, it would appear.

Good luck! I know you’ll keep us posted

By: Tristan J. Schwartz

Tristan J. Schwartz — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 16:30:19 +0000

I believe what you have there is the humerus of a common pigeon.

http://faculty.uca.edu/~march/bio2/birdskel.gif

http://www.geocities.com/dragonraid/birds/pp/images/misc/passengerpigeonskeleton.jpg

http://www.backyardnature.net/birdbone.gif

What did I win?

By: Mark Martin

Mark Martin — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 16:08:21 +0000

Maybe the BA is fibbing to us all, to test our gullibility. Maybe that’s an inch scale after all (with architect’s 1/10-scale sub-increments, instead of 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, and so on). Yeah; he’s a bone-fibber!

By: Jay Solis

Jay Solis — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 16:03:08 +0000

I’m going to have to go with a chicken wing bone on this one. Growing up in NYC, you would often find someone’s left over lunch laying around the street, although I’ve never seen it picked so clean before. But I guess if a critter got a hold of it…

I’ll have to conduct a scientific study and order some wings for dinner tonight.

By: ABR

ABR — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 15:35:50 +0000

Comments were turned off when I tried to comment here yesterday. I was somehow able to put a small comment in the previous post. Go figure.

My comparative anatomy texts are still boxed up from several moves back, but this bone appears to be more avian than mammalian to me. The bit that bothers me is that if this is a lower leg bone of a rat, then we should be seeing the fibula stick out for part of the length or we would see where it had broken off. There are too many extra condyles (knobby bits) for it to be from a forelimb. The link below should show a pretty decent rat skeleton.

http://www.carolina.com/owls/guide/ratskeleton.pdf

I think what the BA has found is the tarsometatarsus of a bird. That would be an extended tarsus (think lower, lower leg). Check out the link below for a pigeon’s skeleton, which should serve as a pretty good generic bird for our purposes.

http://www.carolina.com/owls/guide/birdskeleton.pdf

This is my take on things, but vertebrates aren’t my speciality — I’m an Invertebratista. Are there any bird people reading this who can confirm or deny my guess?

By: Amy

Amy — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 15:30:39 +0000

My first guess was also that it is a chicken bone, but then I saw the ruler and dismissed that possibility since chickens usually don’t come in that size…:)

It’s interesting what kinds of animals come and go to our backyards when we’re not paying attention…

By: John

John — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 13:56:50 +0000

“Maybe it is a chicken bone from somebodyâ€™s lunch. ”

That’s what I was going to say! Chicken wing that some critter picked out of the trash. Maybe he left it there to give you a hint – “Next time throw out a side of bleu cheese dressing, too.”

By: brad

brad — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 13:43:22 +0000

Maybe it is a chicken bone from somebody’s lunch.

By: brad

brad — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 13:41:20 +0000

It looks human to me. That’s kind of gross. I wouldn’t pick up stuff like that.

By: The barber of civility

The barber of civility — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 13:33:39 +0000

Rats may look “cute”, but they are not! They are destructive and carry nasty diseases. They also infest areas.

We had roof rats in our attic last year. They leave feces (and invisible trails of urine) everywhere they roam and they eat food left out (including pet food.) We found a drawer they had nested in that was very nasty underneath.

Pest control specialist recommend using strong chemicals and gloves to clean up after rats. Rat bites can make you very sick and small children have died from them.

So please, do not label them as “cute”. That label, in particular, causes other people to see something lovable that is decidedly not.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 10:00:15 +0000

My wife is a medical scientist, aka a person who cuts up cute, furry white animals.
Works for a mob called he Bone Growth Foundation.

Her opinion is “young rat tibia”, although she’d really like to see the fibula extension
to be sure, e.g. the pointy bit of bone where teh fibula joins the tibia.