{"id":3677,"date":"2024-08-26T21:08:47","date_gmt":"2024-08-27T02:08:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/mammals\/?p=3677"},"modified":"2025-07-29T18:11:29","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T23:11:29","slug":"celebrity-rats-rats-in-the-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/mammals\/celebrity-rats-rats-in-the-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrity Rats: Rats In The News"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"rat
Search the internet, and you will find interesting news about rats. Brandi Saxton<\/a> of It’s A Rat’s World<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When the news is filled with what seems like never-ending political discourse and general doom and gloom, you yearn for news about simpler and happier things in life. I think that\u2019s why everyone loves heartwarming animal stories. For me, it\u2019s even better if the story is about rats. It\u2019s difficult to find articles that show rats in a positive or funny way, however. Typically, when I see a headline about them, it\u2019s usually disparaging and the article blabbers on about how rats are \u201ctaking over\u201d a city and there\u2019s an \u201cinfestation\u201d of them \u2014 blah, blah, blah.<\/p>\n

Every now and then, though, I have the pleasure of coming across a news story showing rats some love. Or at the very least, showing them in a quirky and humorous way.<\/p>\n

In case you too need a break from the all the bad news, here are a few fun rat-related stories to recharge your emotional batteries.<\/p>\n

Viral Video Rats<\/h3>\n

Pizza-Loving Rat:<\/strong> Unless you\u2019re never online, you likely already know about the viral video of the pizza-loving rat that became an instant internet sensation in 2015. Can you believe it\u2019s been almost nine years since this wild New York City rat found fame as she tried dragging a pizza slice, twice her size, down a subway staircase?<\/p>\n

Since then the video on YouTube<\/a>, taken by Matt Little, has been viewed over 12 million times and has been featured on late night talk shows, as well as local and national news programs across the world. The rat even has her own wiki page<\/a> and has inspired countless adaptations, from memes, fan art, a children\u2019s book, Halloween costumes, performance art, toys, and countless other merchandise.<\/p>\n

What I found delightfully surprising was that the tenacity of a sewer rat managed to entertain the world, while also getting humans to root for her (based on the video I suspect the rat was a female). I think the only other rat that has even come close to this astonishing feat is Remy from the movie \u201cRatatouille.\u201d And that\u2019s just a fictional cartoon character, not an actual rat \u2014 and a \u201cdirty\u201d sewer rat at that. I bet that hungry little girl never knew how famous she became!<\/p>\n

Buddy the Rat:<\/strong> Not an actual rat, but a character created by a street performer, puppeteer, and theater actor named Jonothon Lyons<\/a>. While in character, Lyons acts and moves around like a friendly (man-sized) street rat, entertaining tourists similar to a mime. Besides a long pink tail, he also wears an elaborate mask with long whiskers and eyes that can blink, which he designed and sculpted himself<\/p>\n

Buddy made news in 2020 when a video went viral depicting a \u201cpizza rat man\u201d dragging a giant (fake) slice of pizza around a subway station \u2026 and, of course, up and down a flight of stairs. This art performance got Lyons featured on CNN<\/a> and in many written news sources. Buddy the Rat currently has 169K followers on Instagram and 4 million on TikTok<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"magazine
One of Maaike Zonderhuis’ rats won the Instagram Rat of the Month contest in the magazine “It’s A Rat’s World” in 2012. Brandi Saxton<\/a> of It’s A Rat’s World<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Spaghetti Rat:<\/strong> Less than a month after Pizza Rat went viral, publications like Huffington Post<\/a> and The Dodo started sharing the video of Baby, the spaghetti noodle-loving rat<\/a> from the Netherlands. The video was originally uploaded by Baby\u2019s owner Maaike Zonderhuis to her YouTube channel in 2014, but it didn\u2019t go viral until October 2015. It has since gained 1.6 million views.<\/p>\n

Pizza Rat might have caused a demand for videos of rats with food, but I\u2019m guessing that because Baby looked like Ratatouille\u2019s Remy and was propped on his back while scarfing down his pasta, this video provided that extra \u201cAwww!\u201d factor. It certainly showed non-rat people how adorable these animals really are because of it.<\/p>\n

Fun Fact: Maaike and I had already been following each other\u2019s Instagram accounts before Baby became famous. A few of her other rats were actually featured in my magazine \u201cIt\u2019s a Rat\u2019s World,\u201d and one of them was the winner of my November 2012 Rat of the Month contest.<\/em><\/p>\n

Rat Heroes<\/h3>\n

Fido:<\/strong> Let\u2019s jump back in time for a moment to 1998, when a pet rat named Fido<\/a> made the news for saving his owners\u2019 lives. When an electrical fire broke out in Lisa Gumbley\u2019s home in the middle of the night, Fido managed to get out of his cage and went running upstairs to scratch on her door. Lisa heard the scratches and was able to get Fido, herself, her two daughters, their grandmother, and even the pet dog to safety.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure if Fido went upstairs to purposely awaken the family as the articles suggest, but at the very least he sought them for safety during a frightening moment. It\u2019s very common for rats to run to their owners when they are truly frightened. Regardless of this brave rat\u2019s motivation, his actions show how bonded he felt to the humans in his life. It\u2019s that bond that ultimately saved this family from perishing.<\/p>\n

HeroRATs:<\/strong> Anytime African giant pouched rats make the news, it\u2019s usually about the lifesaving HeroRATs. The organization APOPO trains their rats, which they call HeroRATs, to sniff out landmines<\/a> and tuberculosis<\/a> (TB). APOPO stands for Anti-Persoonsmijnen Ontmijnende Product Ontwikkeling in Dutch. It is a global NGO that began in Belgium. Its website states that translated to English, APOPO means Anti-Personnel Landmines Detection Product Development.<\/p>\n

Besides their powerful sense of smell, these talented animals are light enough to move across minefields without setting off any hidden explosives (a threat to over 60 countries). It takes 5 kilograms of pressure to activate a landmine, but the heaviest male rat currently working weighs less than 1.5 kilograms. While this is still dangerous work, no HeroRATs have been injured or killed to date, and their welfare<\/a> is always a concern.<\/p>\n

Other HeroRATs do their work in a lab detecting TB, which can affect over 10 million people per year, killing more than a million of them. The rats are capable of sniffing 100 samples in only 20 minutes, versus the four days it would take a lab technician using microscopy.<\/p>\n

The most famous among these amazing rats was Magawa, who passed away in 2022. In 2020, after giving five years of service, the UK\u2019s leading veterinary charity PDSA presented Magawa with their Gold Medal<\/a> for “life-saving devotion to duty, in the location and clearance of deadly landmines in Cambodia”. It was the first time a rat had ever earned this honor!<\/p>\n

To date, these tiny heroes have so far helped to find 162,924 landmines (and other explosives) and freed over 2.2 million people from explosion threat. Plus, they\u2019ve halted 311,709 cases of TB. To learn more or to \u201cadopt\u201d a HeroRAT visit the APOPO website<\/a>, or just do an internet search; you\u2019ll find plenty of news stories about their outstanding work.<\/p>\n

Fun Fact: Back in 2015, I got to team up with APOPO through my magazine and design a limited edition T-shirt for them.<\/em><\/p>\n

Rats And Their Owners<\/h3>\n

Marty Mouse:<\/strong> If you don\u2019t already know who Marty Mouse<\/a> is, then you must be new to rats. Back in 2013, a little apricot-colored, hooded dumbo (Mouse in name only) named Marty quickly stole the hearts of rat lovers on Facebook<\/a>. People were awed by his adorable photos and his hilarious musing on such topics as his \u201cInternashunal Bizness,\u201d \u201cSpace Trabel,\u201d or his \u201cSock Theory<\/a>.\u201d The creative storytelling and what is now known as the Marty Mouse House brand, was the brainchild of Marty\u2019s owner, Sarah Hunt, a professional photographer and graphic designer.<\/p>\n

Marty\u2019s postings had this organic way of engaging his audience and getting them involved. People around the world started taking part in his state plate challenge<\/a>, sending him souvenir licenses plates to be photographed for Marty\u2019s internashunal bizness. As his popularity grew, he even got the attention of pop culture publications like Bored Panda<\/a> and BuzzFeed. The MMH Facebook account has since grown. It currently has more than 79K followers and more than 38K on Instagram.<\/p>\n

Sadly, Marty went to \u201cHeaben\u201d in 2015, but his legacy has lived on through the beloved rats that have since come in and out of Hunt\u2019s life. Each of them has continued Marty\u2019s \u201cbizness\u201d and has started their own grand adventures and professions. One of Marty\u2019s successors, Fibbs, even ran for President<\/a> in 2016. He represented the \u201cDonutcratic Party.\u201d He definitely had my vote!<\/p>\n

Fun Fact: Both Marty and Fibbs were featured on covers of \u201cIt\u2019s a Rat\u2019s World\u201d and for a couple of years Marty even had an advice column in it called \u201cDeer Dr. Marty.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The One Time I Was In The News:<\/strong> This isn\u2019t so much about one specific rat celebrity, or even a specific group of rats, but it\u2019s still about rats in the news. And seeing as this is my article, I get to take a moment for this humble brag.<\/p>\n

Back in 2009, a year and half after I started my magazine, \u201cIt\u2019s a Rat\u2019s World\u201d (it ran for 13 years), a local newspaper reporter approached me. She found the idea of a magazine all about pet rats amusing and interesting, and asked if she could write an article on it and send a photographer to my house. I was super hesitant at first because I\u2019m a major introvert. Also, I didn\u2019t want it to turn into something that was ultimately disparaging to rats. I finally gave in, however, and was thrilled with the result<\/a>. The reporter even tied in Any Rat Rescue, the rescue I had volunteered with for years, and where most of my rats have been adopted from. It was nice to have the opportunity to promote rats as the fantastic pets they are and to actually be a part of some rat-positive news rather than just scouring the internet for it.<\/p>\n

I hope these \u201crat celebrities\u201d brought a little levity to your day.<\/p>\n

For more rat-related news stories, check out:
\nRats That Can Drive:<\/a> Owners teach their pet rats to drive tiny cars.
\nShow Rats:<\/a> Award-winning rats at the National Fancy Rat Society show.
\nBlack Death:<\/a> Rats didn\u2019t spread the plague.
\nThe Chicago Rat Hole:<\/a> A rat-shaped hole in a Chicago neighborhood sidewalk.<\/p>\n

If you know of any other that haven\u2019t been mentioned, share them in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From rats going viral on video to hero rats sniffing out landmines to adorable rats that warm people’s hearts, there’s actually quite a lot of news about rats!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":3686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rat","category-rat-fun"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/mammals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/mammals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/mammals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/mammals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/mammals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3677"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/mammals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4407,"href":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/mammals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3677\/revisions\/4407"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/mammals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/mammals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/mammals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lafeber.com\/mammals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}