Uptown Rats

Not all the rats are the same. A graduate student at Fordham University did a genetic study on rats in New York City and discovered the uptown rats in the Big Apple are genetically different from rodents in downtown.
Because there is little-known facts about the animal except that it lives under their feet and the rodent carry several zoonotic diseases, Matthew Combs did a DNA study comparing the two rats. He and other researchers spent two years going around the city and trapping the rats, WXXI reported.
Barrier to genetic mixing
He extracted and analyzed the DNA of over 200 rats. Combs and his team cut off a one-inch section of the tail of each rodent and then released the animal. A DNA analysis of the tails found different genetic mutations between the uptown and downtown rats. He used crowd-sourced rat map …show more content…
Some of them even allowed the researchers into their backyards to help set up mouse traps.
Combs eventually determined that the rats which live in uptown, north of 59th Street, are genetically distinct from the rodents that live in downtown, 14th Street. There are few rats in the Midtown area which was a barrier to genetic mixing.
Manhattan’s midsection has fewer human homes which meant there is less food garbage that the rats can rely on and fewer place to burrow in the area, Pix 11 reported. Combs pointed out that Manhattan is filled with buildings and not many are residential edifices which translated into fewer habitat for rats.
Combs’ research found that the rats have their own home areas and generally stick to its neighborhoods. He disclosed that rats in the same colony tend to stay within about 200 to 400 meters of each other. It implied that the rodents stay right very close to where it was born, specifically only about 656 feet where it was born, Mashable

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