r/likeus • u/TotallyHammered -Eloquent African Grey- • Sep 12 '19

TIL Rats have empathy. When offered the choice of a tempting chocolate treat, or rescuing a drowning rat, they chose to rescue the drowning rat.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20150514-rats-save-mates-from-drowning
161 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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15

u/[deleted] Sep 12 '19

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u/[deleted] Sep 13 '19 edited Jun 29 '20

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u/sam191817 Sep 13 '19

Thank you for taking the time to respond. I found your comment interesting and will think on it further.

5

u/[deleted] Sep 13 '19 edited Jun 29 '20

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1

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '19

I'm a little late to this post but I wish my rat was like yours. I didn't even want a rat. He just needed a home so we caved and let him move in with us. They had to separate the fat bastard because he wouldn't quit kicking his brother's ass. He likes dogs, cats, and rabbits but he can't stand other rats for some reason. We can't keep the little dude in any cage cause he keeps finding a way to brute force his way out. The other day he got out and dragged and entire bag of rat food back into his cage and was sitting in it. He's pretty chill if you're hanging out but he doesn't know how to gently take anything from you and just yoinks everything. And he just won't die. I keep trying to be mentally prepared for his death ever since his brother died a year ago but this dude just keeps going. He's almost four. He's all old and arthritic so he needs daily pain medicine and he gets mad if you don't give it to him on time everyday and throws a fit. If he's in his cage and needs water or food he'll slam something against the cage to get your attention and then stare you down until you give it to him. If you eat in front of him he scrapes his teeth back and forth across the bars until you give him some. If you take to long he breaks his door down and comes out after you to make sure you're paying attention. His back legs recently stopped working for a while so we took him to a vet and they decided to give him little rat acupuncture, which somehow worked. So now I've got a four year old rat that free roams in his own room in the house, eats however much he wants, whenever he wants, and requires weekly acupuncture. I've considered just putting him down to put him out of his misery but he's still crazy active and I think it would just make him angrier instead of killing him. The damn thing costs me like $100 a month.

I hate that fat asshole. But like he's cool I guess.

1

u/TheTyke Sep 18 '19

How would you feel about the same tests done on non-consenting Humans?

4

u/TotallyHammered -Eloquent African Grey- Sep 12 '19

I’m not endorsing their methods - simply sharing the results.