Telepathic rats

“Hey brother, have you checked out this new restaurant at St. Martin Street? Let’s check out their pantry today” this could be one of the normal day to day conversations that rodents have.

But how do they communicate? How does an aged rat share his words of wisdom with his grandchildren; how do rats have their intense discussions on the potential spots for harborage and food for their family. Of course, they do not have 6500 types of languages as we do. Then how do they pass on the information that they gather? Let us decode the secret that these “telepathic rats” use to transmit messages.

Rats are blessed with a very strong sense of smell and taste. They have about 500 to 1000 types of olfactory receptors, coded for by between 500 and 1,000 genes, and one out of every 100 genes is involved in the detection of odors. The rat’s sense of smell registers not only average scents but also the presence of chemicals that denote a change in atmosphere or emotion.

The journey of any odorant dispersed in the air begins by first passing through a patch of skin rich with smell receptors and olfactory neurons, which are tipped with hair-like cilia. Smell particles bind to the cilia. From here the odorant makes its way to the olfactory bulbs where they meet about 2000 baskets like structures called ‘glomeruli’. The journey ends with the activation of glomeruli which results in giving a perception of smell to the rat. Different patterns of glomeruli are activated when a rat smells different odors.

Now to communicate information amongst each other rodents make use of their second type of sense organ known as the Vomeronasal organ (VNO), which primarily detects ‘pheromones’, the chemical signals transmitted between members of the same species. Pheromones are mainly found in rat’s excreta, urine and also in any other glandular secretions.

For example, consider a case of automobiles. If a rat finds a car suitable and safe for shelter, hiding or for storing food, mice living hundreds of miles away will gain this knowledge through pheromones. The little critter simply marks the car with a peculiar scent. So even if you get rid of a rat today, there is always a possibility of future infestations due to this internal communication between them.

Another very interesting phenomenon observed in rats is their way of carrying forwarding valuable information to the coming generations for dealing with many difficult situations they need to face.

For example, every rat’s environment is filled with many potential foods and with many non-consumable foods like poisons, rocks, plastics and so forth. Then how does the rat figure out what to eat?

Before birth: In utero, fetal rats detect odor-bearing particles that come from their mother’s diet and cross the placental barrier. Shortly after birth, newborn rats respond positively to these foods. Therefore, they start learning about what to eat from their mother before they’re even born.

During nursing: Nursing rats receive information about their mother’s diet through her milk. They prefer the foods she ate during lactation.

Weaning: When young rats are weaning and eating solid foods for the first time, they use adult rats as guides. They forage where the adults are foraging or where adults have previously scent-marked.

Adolescence and adulthood: When rats forage on their own, their food choices are influenced by social interactions that may take place far away from foraging sites. They smell foods on the fur, whiskers and especially the breath of other rats and strongly prefer the foods that those rats had consumed.

Also, a study conducted by neuroscientists at Emory University found that fear can travel quickly through generations of mice DNA

In the experiment, researchers taught male mice to fear the smell of cherry blossoms by associating the scent with mild foot shocks. Two weeks later, they bred with females. The resulting pups were raised to adulthood having never been exposed to the smell.

Yet when the critters caught a whiff of it for the first time, they suddenly became anxious and fearful. They were even born with more cherry-blossom-detecting neurons in their noses and more brain space devoted to cherry-blossom-smelling.

The memory transmission extended out another generation when these male mice bred, and similar results were found.

Rats cause huge damages in many areas like automobiles, agriculture, electronics, gas sector, hotel industries etc. The loss is even more due to their ability to transmit information amongst each other regarding the vulnerable targets to attack. Thus we need a solution.

At  C Tech Corporation we make use of the mother nature’s gift of senses to these rodents in formulating an extremely low toxicity and extremely low hazard and environmental products which act as repellants and do not kill.

Rodrepel^TM  is an extremely low toxicity and extremely low hazard and eco-friendly rodent aversive. Rodrepel^TM is available in form of masterbatches, liquid concentrate and lacquer and is specially designed for polymeric applications. It can be incorporated into nearly all base polymers like HDPE, MDPE, LDPE, PVC, PE, etc.

The mechanism followed by our product is repellence, it affects their olfactory senses and prevents them from attacking the substrate and also does not aid in killing the target species. The product does not interfere with the working of the end application it is used in. It is stable at high temperatures; does not leach out or produce any toxic fumes and has a long shelf life.