Rats are having a moment. The rodents, known variously as “land pigeons” or “the poor man’s dog,” may be in the process of being vindicated for one of their longest-standing charges: that they were ...

The black rat—also known as the ship rat, the roof rat, and the house rat—is actually gray. It has large ears and a tail that’s longer than its body. The black rat (Rattus rattus) probably evolved in ...

It would appear that our hatred of rats for the past several hundred years may be due to a bit of mistaken identity. Scientists this week have published a paper which suggests that it wasn't so much ...

For hundreds of years, the arrival of the bubonic plague in Europe in the mid-14th century has been blamed on rats. However, a new study released this week has put a different rodent under suspicion: ...

(WTNH)– The Black Death is trending after a new scientific study suggests that gerbils, not rats, were what caused the bubonic plague in the Middle Ages. Approximately eight centuries later, science ...

Diane Nott, of Elyria, Ohio, holds a gerbil prior to the society's annual New England pageant Saturday, in Bedford, Mass. According to a new study, we may have been blaming the wrong rodent for the ...

WASHINGTON -- After nearly eight centuries of accusations for spreading the bubonic plague, scientists say they have compelling evidence to exonerate the much-maligned black rat. In the process, ...

For a long time, rats have taken the heat for the waves of plague that killed millions of people across Europe starting in the 14th century. A team of scientists from Norway and Switzerland are ...

A rat peeks out of a hole near a subway stop in Brooklyn, New York, in 2005. Rats have long been blamed for helping to spread a plague that killed millions in 14th century Europe. However, new ...

Rats have a bad rap. They have for centuries. Ever since the middle of the 14th century when the Black Plague descended over Europe. Rats took the rap for spreading the bubonic plague, which killed ...

Being a New Yorker, I'm something of a rat-spotter. And I'm an unsentimental one at that. The sight of a dead rat rarely rattles me, both because it's so familiar and because of the rodent’s ...

Show me a gerbil, any gerbil, and I will show you a homicidal rodent with an unquenchable thirst for blood, human or otherwise. I learned this valuable life lesson early on when Julie the Gerbil, the ...