Rodents destroy around 70 million tonnes of grain each year. What if we could trick them into looking elsewhere for their food?
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Articles on Rodents
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Rodents are the most numerous – and least studied – of all Earth’s mammals.
Australia has more than 60 species of native rodents found nowhere else in the world. New research used museum specimens to find out how they got here.
Urban coyotes prey on rodents and spread plant seeds. It’s OK to observe them from a distance, but then you should chase them off.
With temperatures plunging, rodents have started seeking the warmth and food inside our houses. Here’s how to deal with them effectively and humanely – without accidentally catching native animals.
Discovering a mouse with a reproductive system surprisingly similar to our own is good news for pregnancy research.
Mice pups living on mountain tops reserve their energy for growth rather than warmth. When they get too cold, they conserve energy by slowing down their metabolic processes.
Animals that regularly dine on toxic food may hold clues for designing new drugs to treat persistent pain in humans.
If all, or even most, offspring of the survivors are shy, we could be facing an introduced pest population that is incredibly difficult to remove.
One vet suggested bushfire smoke had killed the smoky mouse – and asked, in a nod to the species’ name, if this was a case of “death by irony”.
Climate change, globalization and concerns about rat poison soon could drive rat infestations to levels not seen in centuries. One way to curb them is getting humans to stop wasting food.
The mouse who tidied the shed he lives in fascinated human viewers, but cleanliness isn’t a virtue unique to humans.
Instead of causing problems for farmers, carnivores could actually be beneficial by controlling rodent pests.
Indian-made antivenoms, common throughout Africa because they are affordable, showed little-to-no neutralisation of the African Echis venoms.
Agricultural pests are one of the key factors affecting small holder farmer production. Focus is normally put on invertebrate pests, but rodents can do severe damage to crops as well.
Climate change has an impact on small mammals and some battle to survive. But some others have developed intriguing coping mechanisms to survive.
Rats foul our food, spread disease and damage property, but we know very little about them. A biologist explains how he tracks wild rats in New York City, and what he’s learned about them so far.
Plague, one of the deadliest diseases in the world, has been reported in several African countries in the past decade.
Top contributors
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Associate lecturer, University of Venda
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Professor of Ecology, Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich
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Visiting Research Scholar, Fordham University
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Professor of Conservation Biology, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney
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Principal Pathologist, Centre for Emerging, Zoonotic and Parasitic Diseases, National Institute for Communicable Diseases and Wits Research Institute for Malaria, University of the Witwatersrand
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Lecturer in Psychology, Newcastle University
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Lecturer College of Science & Engineering, Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Studies, James Cook University
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Associate Professor of Wildlife Health and Pathology, Charles Sturt University
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Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Zoology, University of Venda, Researcher at IGDORE, and Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Anthropology, Durham University
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Research Associate, The University of Queensland
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Fellow, Keele University
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Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, Fordham University
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Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Australian National University
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PhD Candidate in Integrative Biology, Michigan State University
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Professor of Behavioural Ecology, University of Sydney
