Rats in the news: Make a happy noise!

[marko_the_rat]

I've reported on this before, but there's a new article about rats laughing (including a video). Dr Panksepp has been gathering more evidence outlining the parallels to human laughter and there's even speculation about rats' sense of humour: He thinks they favour slapstick. Funny. I've always had a weakness for toilet humour myself. And anyone who's kept rats as pets know they delight in being mischievous.

Comments

[mejeep.livejournal.com]

so will there be enough RAT audience for a 3 Stooges or Paul Hogan revival? :">

[marko-the-rat.livejournal.com]

Maybe. There's already a precedent for interspecies television. A comedian reported on research that shows that monkeys watch television. He speculated that this would explain the high ratings of the Footy Show.

[foxwell.livejournal.com]

heheh... the rats I know love to be mischievous ;)

[marko-the-rat.livejournal.com]

Oh? And how many rats do you know?

[foxwell.livejournal.com]

hmmm, I can think of three off the top of my head, so perhaps the number of rats i know

=3

:)

[espilonarge.livejournal.com]

My pet rat Nibbles is silly when his tickled. Trust me, I know his ticklish because everytime I tickle him he'll turn around and try tackling my hand while nipping. Rather cute when it happens. n.n;

[peromyscus.livejournal.com]

We could use rats to judge how funny comedy movies are XD I wonder how they'd react to one of Eddy Murphy's movies XDDDDDDD

[marko-the-rat.livejournal.com]

NO! You should know I won't condone cruelty to rats. ;)

[vass]

I think they'd pee on it.

I would, if I were a rat.

[vass]

I heard. :-)

He thinks they favour slapstick.

Well, it'd have to be pretty broad humour for a human observer to tell that something's meant to be funny. I mean, cross-species communication being what it is, he can't exactly show them Fawlty Towers and then listen to them yelling "SIBERIAN HAMSTER?" and "HE NAMED IT BASIL!" and twittering with laughter.

There are probably all sorts of little subtle things rats find funny that we can't interpret, like "he held his tail at *what* angle?" and "*the* most absurd smell, I'm telling you!"

I can remember my first three rats and how they used to interact. There was an evening when Vlad and Oz were having an, um, leadership discussion, and Oz (little guy, specialised in flying leaps and using his momentum against the opponent) backed up and slowly sized Vlad up like he was about to do a big pounce. The tip of his tail twitched. Everything goes very still. Then Oz elaborately yawns.

Francis (Vlad's brother) was sitting on a ledge, and I think he was watching the play with the same fascination and amusement that I was.

[marko-the-rat.livejournal.com]

Brilliant! I guess that was a bit of rat humour to defuse the tension of the situation.

[ristin.livejournal.com]

Awww, I was hopeing Marko would credit me with the find (of the video)...

Anyway, I thought it was cute.

[espilonarge.livejournal.com]

It would be more cute if you tickled Marko and taped it. *grins evily*

[aldi.livejournal.com]

I can picture Ristin tickling you to see what kind of sound you'd make!

[marko-the-rat.livejournal.com]

That would be something like "Aaaa! Stoppit!"