Norway Rats
Species
Norway Rat Facts
- Also called: brown rat, sewer rat or wharf rat
- Color: coarse brown fur, fading to a gray or off-white belly
- Weight: about 7 to 18 ounces
- Size: up to about 16 inches from nose to tail tip, with a tail of 6 to 8 inches
Norway Rat Behavior
The name is misleading. This rat most likely came from northern China and spread around the world on ships, reaching North America in the 1700s. Today it lives in all of the lower 48 states, wherever people provide food and shelter.
How to identify a Norway rat, and how it differs from a roof rat
Florida has two common rats, and around homes the roof rat is the one people see more often. The Norway rat is the bigger, stockier of the two, with a heavy body, coarse shaggy fur, a blunt nose, small ears that do not reach the eyes when folded forward, and a scaly tail shorter than its head and body combined. A roof rat is slimmer and more agile, with a pointed nose, large thin ears and a tail longer than its body.
Droppings help too. Norway rat droppings are large, about three-quarters of an inch long, and capsule-shaped with blunt ends. Roof rat droppings are smaller with pointed ends.
Norway rats are burrowers. They dig in soil along foundations, under slabs and sidewalks, beneath sheds and woodpiles, along seawalls and canal banks, and live in sewers. Indoors they stay low, in crawl spaces, garages, ground floors and the bases of walls, while roof rats favor attics and trees. They are strong swimmers and stay close to a reliable water source.
They eat almost anything, including grains, seeds, pet food, garbage, meat, fish and fruit, and they are cautious around new objects. They are mainly active at night. In Florida they are found most often in cities, around ports and waterfronts, and on farms. They can be active in any month, and in North Florida they push into structures more in the cooler months. See Norway rat infestations for signs to look for.
Norway Rat Profile
- Scientific name: Rattus norvegicus
- Lifespan: usually a year or less in the wild
- Litters: several a year, often 6 to 12 pups each
- Home range: most stay within about 100 to 150 feet of the nest
Norway Rat Habits
Norway rats live in family groups that share a network of tunnels. The nest chamber is padded with soft material they gather and shred, such as paper, cloth, insulation or dry grass. Each night they make regular trips out for food and water, and they seldom go more than a few hundred feet from home. That means a rat seen in your yard almost always lives close by.
Colonies have a pecking order. Larger, older rats claim the best food and nesting spots, and younger or smaller rats get pushed to the edges. Those low-ranking rats are often the ones that wander into garages and sheds looking for room of their own, and the ones people notice first as a population grows.
They breed fast. A female can mate again soon after giving birth, and her young are ready to breed at around three months old. A single female can raise 20 or more young in a year, so a couple of sightings should not be brushed off.
Their front teeth never stop growing, and they gnaw constantly to keep them worn down. Wood, plastic, rubber, drywall and wiring insulation are all fair game, which is how they open new paths into a building. They also need to drink every day, so leaky pipes, pet water bowls, pools and drainage areas often decide where a colony settles.
Rats Species
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