# Rat outwits scientists, evades traps and dogs, swims 400m of open ocean to new land

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rat-outwits-scientists-evades-traps-and-dogs-swims-400m-of-open-ocean-to-new-land/328156>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [October 27, 2005, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rat-outwits-scientists-evades-traps-and-dogs-swims-400m-of-open-ocean-to-new-land/328156 "2005-10-27T14:28:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2005, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rat-outwits-scientists-evades-traps-and-dogs-swims-400m-of-open-ocean-to-new-land/328156/1 "2005-10-27T14:28:26Z")

</div>

[Your cat surrenders](http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/10/21/smart.rat.reut/index.html):

> [@CNN](#):
>
> **A rat released on a deserted island off New Zealand outsmarted scientists and evaded traps, baits and sniffer dogs before being captured four months later on a neighboring island, researchers have said.**
> 
> [snip]
> 
> Despite all their efforts, including fitting the rat with a radio collar, they couldn’t catch the crafty creature.
> 
> After 10 weeks on the island the rodent decided it had had enough. It swam 400 meters, the longest distance recorded for a rat across open sea, to another rat-free island where it was eventually captured in a trap baited with penguin meat several weeks later.

This was a bog-standard Norway rat (_Rattus norvegicus_), the kind of animal that infests cities and granaries the world over. The article doesn’t mention any special training or breeding, but I doubt the rat had gotten any: The experiment was clearly about how to keep islands free of invading wild rats, hence the common breed.

This is probably the understatement of the year in biological circles:

> [@](#):
>
> “Our findings confirm that eliminating a single invading rat is disproportionately difficult,” James Russell and his colleagues said in a report in the science journal Nature.

The rat breed and the long swim make this song seem oddly approrpiate:

> [@Immigrant Song](#):
>
> We come from the land of the ice and snow,  
> From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.  
> The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands,  
> To fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming!

😃