Rats are omnivorous, aggressive, intelligent, adaptable, and extremely fecund. Female rats produce as many as 8 litters each year with as many as 20 young per litter. The gestation period is three weeks, and the young reach sexual maturity in about two months. Rats may live as long as four years. They are social animals but sometimes fight among themselves.

Rats live mostly in and around human settlements, where they have few natural enemies and an abundant source of food. They invade food supplies and cause widespread destruction; they also spread human diseases such as typhus and tularemia. Despite human efforts to exterminate rats, the house rat population is probably equal to the human population.

See H. Zinsser, Rats, Lice and History (1935); S. A. Barnett, The Rat, a Study in Behavior (1963)