The brown rat (Rattus norvegicus), also known as the common rat, street rat, sewer rat, Hanover rat, Norway rat, Norwegian rat, Parisian rat, water rat, or wharf rat, is one of the best known and most common rats.
One of the largest muroids, it is a brown or grey rodent with a head and body length of up to 28 cm (11 in) long, and a tail slightly shorter than that. It weighs between 140 and 500 g (4.9 and 17.6 oz). Thought to have originated in northern China, this rodent has now spread to all continents except Antarctica, and is the dominant rat in Europe and much of North America, making it, by at least this particular definition, the most successful mammal on the planet alongside humans. With rare exceptions, the brown rat lives wherever humans live, particularly in urban areas.
Selective breeding of the brown rat has produced the fancy rat as a pet, as well as the laboratory rat – the white rats used as model organisms in biological research.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_rat
Photos Geri by George Konstantinou
One of the largest muroids, it is a brown or grey rodent with a head and body length of up to 28 cm (11 in) long, and a tail slightly shorter than that. It weighs between 140 and 500 g (4.9 and 17.6 oz). Thought to have originated in northern China, this rodent has now spread to all continents except Antarctica, and is the dominant rat in Europe and much of North America, making it, by at least this particular definition, the most successful mammal on the planet alongside humans. With rare exceptions, the brown rat lives wherever humans live, particularly in urban areas.
Selective breeding of the brown rat has produced the fancy rat as a pet, as well as the laboratory rat – the white rats used as model organisms in biological research.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_rat
