How Tall Are Rats?
WouterRats vary greatly in height. Rats can grow to be as tall as 32 inches. The world’s largest living rat, known as the capybara, weighs almost one ton. It also has the distinction of being the world’s longest rodent. When their ecosystems become barren, rodents can grow even larger. In fact, rodents once grew to the size of rhinoceri and mammoths, which were much larger than rats today.
Rats differ in size and weight from species to species. In the wild, rats usually weigh less than a pound, but they can grow up to two pounds or more. A rat that weighs more than three pounds was discovered in 2009 during a BBC expedition. The animal was surprisingly not scared of humans and is believed to be the largest rat in the world.
Rats usually have a uniform coat color, but some species are bicolored. For example, the Himalayan field rat is brown with a paler undersurface, while the Turkestan rat is pure white. White-tailed rats in Sulawesi and the Hoogerwerf’s rat have brown tails and white underparts.
Brown rats are the most common species in the world. They reach sexual maturity at three months of age and can produce as many as twelve litters of two to twenty-two young a year. A litter typically contains eight or nine rats, and the gestation period is twenty-one to twenty-six days. Some tropical species breed throughout the year, while others breed only during the wet season. The majority of rat species are nocturnal, meaning they are only active at night.
