Long Haired Rat: Breed faster than rabbits. During the rainy season they have up to 12 babies every 3 weeks. Thus begins the invasion of the horde (7 photos)

Long-haired rats are extremely radical when it comes to survival - they have absolutely no sense of proportion. As soon as good times come, the rodents' cap comes off: a rapid stamping of their own kind begins. Their expansion is so large-scale that surges in numbers without a grain of irony are called the plague. And this scourge covers one unique and special Australia.





But why “long-haired”? No, the rat cannot boast of Sergei Zverev’s hair. It’s just that its distinctive feature is very long and coarse hair that protects the soft undercoat - a real miniature porcupine. Otherwise, she looks like an ordinary brown rat. But neither other rodents nor rabbits can compare with the long-haired rat in its ability to flog children.



This ball of fur with a witcher's libido reproduces all year round without interruption at a relatively leisurely pace. But everything changes in the early days of the rainy season, when food and water become abundant. Then the plague rats look at each other and decide: “It’s time!”





Group obscenity begins underground, and the holes are filled with oohs and sighs. In the short breaks between coitus, the rats go out to get some fresh air and dine. But they do this exclusively at night. Rodents have connected their lives so closely with the twilight that their lifestyle and activity are directly affected by the amount of reflected moonlight.



Three weeks pass and the first batch of mass-produced clones is born. There will be up to 12 of them in one litter, while an ordinary rat on average gives birth to 8 cubs at a time. In another 3 weeks the same number will appear. And after another 3 weeks - too. In well-fed times, the female gives birth to the maximum number of pups continuously. In turn, babies begin to do adult things from two months old! Ordinary pasyuki also mature by this time, but they decide to have cubs only at one year of age.



By this moment, the legion of rodents has already increased hundreds of times, and the rat civilization will take over hundreds of thousands of kilometers of area, simultaneously devastating all the beds cultivated with back-breaking labor. But rat plague is only a problem for humans. For the predatory fauna, the advance of an army of rodents is a reason for a feast: everyone who does not disdain meat eats them.



The exhibition clearly shows how many rats per square meter there are during a surge in birth rates.

Very soon the rapid expansion of rats gradually fades away. There are more and more hungry rat mouths, and less food. Why not stage hunger games, seasoned with episodes of cannibalism?



The plague ends soon after the end of the rainy season. Australian farmers are breathing a sigh of relief, predators are going on a diet, and the surviving long-haired rats are waiting for a new hour to fully take over the entire continent. But, fortunately, they are not able to resist the laws of ecology.