In NYC, uptown and downtown rats don’t mix

It turns out rats, like New Yorkers, are partial to their neighborhoods.

An ecology researcher has been tracking brown rats all over Manhattan for nearly the past three years. Fordham University grad student Matthew Combs found that the rodents stick to certain areas: you’ll find uptown rats and downtown rats, with a break in midtown. The two groups don’t mingle much.

He came to this conclusion only after trapping hundreds of rats and studying their genetic makeup. He was then able to notice genetic differences between rats from different parts of town. He also found that rats only move about 656 feet from where they’re born — that’s about one Manhattan block. Read more…

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Source: Mashable | In NYC, uptown and downtown rats don’t mix