Charise
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Lab rats go wild in Oxfordshire - 2004/08/21 11:03
Lab rats go wild in Oxfordshire: A documentary film proves that laboratory rats can still survive in the wild.
MARK PEPLOW ....
Manuel Berdoy, an animal behaviourist from Oxford University, didn't set out to make a documentary. He was simply curious about whether lab rats retain some of their wild instincts. So he took 75 docile rats that had spent their lives in the laboratory and released them into the wild.
Berdoy expected the rats to cope with their new conditions, but he was impressed by how quickly they adapted. The rats found water, food and hiding holes almost immediately. They started to establish social hierarchies within days, and it was only a few weeks before they had established an extensive pattern of paths across the colony. Although the rats had spent their whole lives being fed on pellets, the females immediately prepared for pregnancy by foraging and storing appropriate food.
"They went from shuffling, like they do in a cage, to hopping around just like wild rats within a few days," says Paul Flecknell, a veterinary scientist from Newcastle University who has seen the film.
The results won't surprise animal behaviourists, says Flecknell, but many biomedical researchers have been amazed by the film.
Most believe that an animal that hasn't been outside a lab for
200 generations will be incapable of fending for itself in the wild, he says.
"This shows that while we can take the animal from the wild, we have not taken the wild out of the animal," says Berdoy.
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