of Rodentia

GLM has brought together a bunch of different views through different mediums in an attempt to enhance your understanding of Rodentia as it is now and was yesterday. GLM's Editorial Input has not been approved by the FDA and is not intended to cure, treat, or prevent any other ideology. Everything in life often connects, overlaps, and reflects one another.

Man has feared, hated, and often misunderstood its rodent friends. Sure, many of you will like to say "EW! A RAT!" but if you're fearful of them...this is not the article for you. If you think rodents in general are ugly, disgusting, vile, filthy creatures...not only are you dead wrong but you're missing out on a whole part of Man's history.

Think about it....what came before the Chimps? The Great Apes? If you think Man, then you might be a Creationist. The correct answer would be.....Rodentia. The species was one of the first mammals to breed and colonize the world. Without them today and yesterday you and I would not be here.

So lets take a look at a few species and allow me to highlight some of the good they've done, and also, to be a completely fair journalist, some of the bad.

Squirrels are rather smart creatures. In fact, they often make dogs and cats angry as they outsmart them and live to see another day.

There are several species of squirrel, and they all love trees. That's where they've grown to kick it. They like to chew on things, like all rodents because their teeth constantly grow. If they didn't wear them down, they'd soon be impaled by their chops. And a dead squirrel is just not cute or productive in nature.

Sometimes they chew on the wrong things, most generally though, they're good at gathering nuts. And in the process, they often create new trees. Kind of like bees....but with a fuzzy tail and no stinger.

My grandmother actually had a common Grey Squirrel. She kept it until it was healthy and released it into her back yard--season after season we would watch it scurry and play with others of its kind. We'd often take nuts out to it and it'd be happy as a lark to come up and eat from our hands.

Capybara's are semi-aquatic rodents that need to live close to water. They're found usually in South America. They eat bark, aquatic plants, and various other land based plants. They're herbivores, just like Vegans to some degree.

Except Capybara's are more social. In fact, all rodents are in some way rather social creatures. They enjoy the company of each other, just like us silly humans. Some people have kept them as pets, but obviously--with their need to live near water--its not quite the easiest animal to keep. However, like all rodents they are very adaptable, and since they're social, they enjoy the company of humans too.

Because they live outside of what most people would call "habitable" land, they actually have very little impact on human society.

Rabbits are very docile and scared little critters. They're mostly at home in a hutch, and are quite popular pets in America. They do, at times, eat a farmer's crop. But can you blame them? I mean...what if you were walking around and you saw a house made of Ginger Bread?

Their visual acuity is very good, but just like most rodents, they've evolved a keen sense of smell and of course...hearing.

I'll be honest right here and now...I keep rats as pets. And I'm sorry, as much as I'd like to be, I can't be completely unbiased. Rats and humans have existed together for thousands of years. Many people blame them for the Black Plague, except, it wasn't the rat it's self--it was the fleas on them. Also, keep in mind what the Middle Ages was like....trash in the streets, straw houses, garbage everywhere, and not enough hygiene. We invited rats in because we left around plenty of morsels for them to eat. Can you blame a rat for walking across a scrap of food that Europeans just dumped outside their homes?

Rats are found all over the world. And its no wonder--they're smart, hardy, clean, and quick creatures. Yes, they've at times destroyed crops--or gotten into grain, processing plants, and the likes.

But we must always remember that no animal (besides maybe, Apes.) speak or understand English so well. And just like many of the views of the Native American tribes, they don't agree that someone can own any one thing. Its all for them, for us, for everyone. Stupid commie animal kingdom!

Allow me to point out a few things:

• Rats utilize their tails for balance
• They're great jumpers
  
• Their tail also is used to remove excess heat
• They don't see well
• Their nose is stereoscopic--they can close one nostril and figure out which direction a smell is coming from

• They're nocturnal, don't like light--just like Smeagol!

Rats have been used as labratory test subjects. And why would that be, may you ask? Well, once Scientists used dogs and cats to go about their heretical work. Then, much like PETA today, people began to complain. So one scientist said..."No one likes rats, and they're more like us than a cat or a dog..(and for that matter, most monkeys!) so lets use them!"

And thus we utilized them in a constructive, if not harmful way.

Another good use of the rat is the Gambian Pouched rat. Its a pretty big critter, but they are being taught to sniff out land mines. They uncover them--without setting them off--and then a human comes by to disarm it.

So sure, they've done some "bad" things. But at the end of the day....they clean themselves more than cats, only use the bathroom in one place, and they're as social as all get out. I began keeping rats several years ago, initially on a lark.

One day I fell asleep on my bed with my first rat, he was sleeping on my stomach at the time. When I woke up I discovered the little guy had found his way off my bed and back into his cage, where he had decided to go back and sleep.

He loved to lick me or anyone else--and yes, like all my rats, they quickly learn their names. His was...Road Kill.

Nutria are again semi-aquatic rodents, closely related to capybaras. They have caused issues, much like other rodents, because us Humans simply don't like their existence and them messing with our stuff.

But hey, they're herbivores. They're clean, too, like a beaver (yet again, another rodent). And....they're social. Easily domesticated, and happy to live among us as pets and friends.

They have been out for a bounty, though. Especially in Louisiana where they have consistently caused water back up issues because of all the irrigation and canals.

In the mid 1960s Humphrey Bogart and his friends had slowly raised to stardom. From Frank Sinatra to Sammy Davis Jr. these guys created the idea of "lounge" music. They single handedly helped create the thriving Las Vegas entertainment industry. That way when you gambled your money away from all the free alcohol, you at least had someone to sing you a song.

Much like squirrels, but with wider bodies and shorter tails, chipmunks like to eat nuts and other things they find on the ground.

They can burrow underground or live in a tree. Alternatively, some have found a music career and have also been converted to Christianity.

When dinosaurs ruled the Earthly roost there was a species of mammal scampering beneath their feet--and that species was rodentia. Rats, hamsters, squirrel, rabbits...they all just want to exist, to live a happy life, and to keep making babies.

Just like us.

You can fear them, you can love them, you can hate them. But unless you want to rid the world of them, you're going to have to learn to live with them. Do you think for a second that a rodent would be a filthy, unkempt mass of fur and teeth and survive as long as it has? I don't.

Without them, humanity, and mammals in general would have been destroyed by T-Rex. But they have found ways around problems, much like us today. Some live in trees, others on the waterline, some are lake-on (like the Beaver!) and others, like rats, try to live in the dark as to keep away from predators.

This concludes G|Ms Thought Bubbles of Rodentia.