10 Rat Facts
If a rat is trapped and released it can move up to four miles from the release point.
A rat burrow can be three meters deep but is rarely more than 0.5 meters deep.
Brown rats show a tendency to be negative geotaxis which means they prefer to move downwards as opposed to upwards.
Black rats are superior climbers and can climb any slightly roughed surface up or down.
Brown rats can jump vertically more than 77cm and 120cm horizontally.
At one time 11-31% of all female rats are pregnant.
Patterns of movement become so engrained in rats that when they get used to moving around an obstacle, if the obstacle is removed they will continue to move around it. Thus the correct siting of trap means they do not have to be baited but it is imperative they are placed directly on the run.
Female rats can distinguish the sex of their offspring by smell.
Rodents can live and breed in cold stores and have been known to nest in the fat layer of carcasses.
Rats eat up to 10% of their body weight a day and cannot live without access to water.
Tuesday 20 December 2011
Tuesday 6 December 2011
A few facts about mice
Mice are the decathletes of the mammalian world. They can only see clearly at a distance of about six inches and are color blind. However, that’s where their physical limitations end. Now the facts get cartoonish.
They can climb walls with ease as long as the walls are textured, they can swim but prefer not to, and they can survive a fall from as high as 8 feet without so much as a scratch. Mice can also jump 12 inches high, and if that weren’t enough, they can also squeeze through openings around ¼” in size.
These are the types of problems professional pest control is designed to resolve for you.
The reasons mice find our homes and businesses are simple.
Mice are curious, they are hungry and as the weather gets colder, mice want shelter. When near structures, mice follow warm air currents passing under door thresholds, and escaping out cracked windows or through utility lines.
Mice also find and follow the food odors these air currents carry. These two scenarios bring mice, quite literally, to our doorstep.
And in case you think seeing a mouse means you only have one, think again. Mice are social mammals with established hierarchies complete with compatible, related males and females. Unrelated males and females are met with aggression and quickly evicted.
Mice are prolific breeders reaching sexual maturity in 35 days. This is problematic since new mice begin breeding at 6-10 weeks with pregnancy lasting 19 days. With an average litter size of 6 mice, and the average female producing about 8 to 10 litters per year, a female mouse can produce a new litter every 40-50 days.
I will leave the rest of the jaw-dropping maths to those within arms reach of a calculator.
The real problem is the filth mice introduce into our environments.
Mice leave droppings just about everywhere they visit. Mice are known disease carriers and their presence is never a good thing.
Among the organisms mice spread are Salmonella, a source of food poisoning caused by mice droppings, tapeworms (also via droppings) and Weil’s disease (infectious jaundice) caused by mice urine in food or water.
If you have mice, or if you know you get mice this time of year, the best time to get started on getting rid of mice is right away.
They can climb walls with ease as long as the walls are textured, they can swim but prefer not to, and they can survive a fall from as high as 8 feet without so much as a scratch. Mice can also jump 12 inches high, and if that weren’t enough, they can also squeeze through openings around ¼” in size.
These are the types of problems professional pest control is designed to resolve for you.
The reasons mice find our homes and businesses are simple.
Mice are curious, they are hungry and as the weather gets colder, mice want shelter. When near structures, mice follow warm air currents passing under door thresholds, and escaping out cracked windows or through utility lines.
Mice also find and follow the food odors these air currents carry. These two scenarios bring mice, quite literally, to our doorstep.
And in case you think seeing a mouse means you only have one, think again. Mice are social mammals with established hierarchies complete with compatible, related males and females. Unrelated males and females are met with aggression and quickly evicted.
Mice are prolific breeders reaching sexual maturity in 35 days. This is problematic since new mice begin breeding at 6-10 weeks with pregnancy lasting 19 days. With an average litter size of 6 mice, and the average female producing about 8 to 10 litters per year, a female mouse can produce a new litter every 40-50 days.
I will leave the rest of the jaw-dropping maths to those within arms reach of a calculator.
The real problem is the filth mice introduce into our environments.
Mice leave droppings just about everywhere they visit. Mice are known disease carriers and their presence is never a good thing.
Among the organisms mice spread are Salmonella, a source of food poisoning caused by mice droppings, tapeworms (also via droppings) and Weil’s disease (infectious jaundice) caused by mice urine in food or water.
If you have mice, or if you know you get mice this time of year, the best time to get started on getting rid of mice is right away.
Monday 5 December 2011
How to video series
We have joined forces with Jim England from London based Protex Pest Control Services Ltd to provide some very useful how to videos.
Jim is a very experienced and highly regarded pest control technician and owner of Protex Pest Control Services Ltd. http://www.protexpest.co.uk/
Check out our Twitter page for regular how to videos.
Jim is a very experienced and highly regarded pest control technician and owner of Protex Pest Control Services Ltd. http://www.protexpest.co.uk/
He is no stranger to the small screen, making regular appearances providing pest control advice on BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and 5.
Check out our Twitter page for regular how to videos.
Friday 2 December 2011
Dont be to hard on wasps they are not stupid.
Wasps can recognise each other’s faces in a similar way to humans, scientists claim.
On a summer’s day, you would be getting the impression that annoying packs of them seem to buzz around at random in search of picnics to feast on.
But in fact wasps have friends who they recognise and behave aggressively towards strangers.
This is because unlike any other insect they have highly developed visual recognition ability and can remember the distinctive facial markings of other wasps.
Insects were previously thought to have brains too small and unsophisticated to recognise individuals, which involves processing a lot of information.
Scientists from the University of Michigan trained two groups of wasps to discriminate between two similar images mounted inside a T-shaped box.
They did 40 trials on each pair of pictures – photos of other wasps, a caterpillar, simple geometric patterns and computer-altered wasp faces.
The wasps could differentiate far more quickly between the unaltered images of a wasp than any of the others, and learned to pick the correct one three-quarters of the time.
When a small alteration made using the computer, such as removing an antenna, they performed much worse on the facial recognition test.
They were not as good at recognising the simple black and white geometric patterns even though insect eyes are good at detecting contrast and outlines, lead author Michael Sheehan said.
The team have previously shown wasps can recognise each other after a week apart.
But this study, published in the journal Science, shows they are the only insect which can recognise faces and suggests recognising each other could be important to their hierarchy and the way they raise their offspring.
Wasps live in colonies of multiple queens which raise their offspring cooperatively and the authors suggest it could ‘keep individuals from wasting energy on repeated aggressive encounters’ and promotes stability.
Mr Sheehan said: ‘Wasps and humans have independently evolved similar and very specialised face-learning mechanisms, despite the fact that everything about the way we see and the way our brains are structured is different.
That’s surprising and sort of bizarre.
‘It shows the way they learn faces is different than the way they seem to be learning other patterns which is striking.
On a summer’s day, you would be getting the impression that annoying packs of them seem to buzz around at random in search of picnics to feast on.
But in fact wasps have friends who they recognise and behave aggressively towards strangers.
This is because unlike any other insect they have highly developed visual recognition ability and can remember the distinctive facial markings of other wasps.
Insects were previously thought to have brains too small and unsophisticated to recognise individuals, which involves processing a lot of information.
Scientists from the University of Michigan trained two groups of wasps to discriminate between two similar images mounted inside a T-shaped box.
They did 40 trials on each pair of pictures – photos of other wasps, a caterpillar, simple geometric patterns and computer-altered wasp faces.
The wasps could differentiate far more quickly between the unaltered images of a wasp than any of the others, and learned to pick the correct one three-quarters of the time.
When a small alteration made using the computer, such as removing an antenna, they performed much worse on the facial recognition test.
They were not as good at recognising the simple black and white geometric patterns even though insect eyes are good at detecting contrast and outlines, lead author Michael Sheehan said.
The team have previously shown wasps can recognise each other after a week apart.
But this study, published in the journal Science, shows they are the only insect which can recognise faces and suggests recognising each other could be important to their hierarchy and the way they raise their offspring.
Wasps live in colonies of multiple queens which raise their offspring cooperatively and the authors suggest it could ‘keep individuals from wasting energy on repeated aggressive encounters’ and promotes stability.
Mr Sheehan said: ‘Wasps and humans have independently evolved similar and very specialised face-learning mechanisms, despite the fact that everything about the way we see and the way our brains are structured is different.
That’s surprising and sort of bizarre.
‘It shows the way they learn faces is different than the way they seem to be learning other patterns which is striking.
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