Before reading this article, please click "Follow", which is not only convenient for you to discuss and share, but also can bring you a different sense of participation, thank you for your support.
Text: Dazhuang Laboratory
Editor/Da Zhuang Laboratory
People tend to have a natural affection for furry animals, except for mice, and it is good to do more proverbs that people have handed down from ancient times to the present, except for those related to mice, such as "everyone shouts and beats rats across the street, mice enter the cat's nest to give gifts, and mice are full of three buckets and six evils" and so on, that for mice, people are more bored.
But if mice really disappear from the world, and there is no such thing as mice in the biosphere, will it really be a good thing for humans to disappear mice with extremely high genetic similarity?
What role do rats play in the biosphere
As an omnivore, rats have the eyes of thieves, but in terms of cleverness, no animal has such flexibility, although there will be some hateful rats stealing the crops that farmers have worked hard to harvest, but rats still have a very important role in the biological ecological circle.
Rats are also an important link in the biological food chain, belonging to a kind of animal of the rodent family, gray-brown dark hair, conducive to running and hiding on the ground, good at burrowing often appear in grass, arable land, vegetable gardens, residences, river embankments, gutters and other environments, is a very tenacious animal.
In the natural environment, there are many animals, such as snakes, owls and wild cats, etc., all of which are based on rats, so rats also play a role in maintaining the diversity of biological species, if rats disappear, then these animals that feed on rats will also face the threat of extinction.
In the urban environment, rats are mostly called street rats, infested in dark corners of gutters such as restaurants, and can also play a role in disposing of humus, which can help maintain and clean the environment, although it is dirty itself, but also helps humans to go to small corners that are difficult to clean.
In addition, mice can also be widely used in the process of scientific research, as the object of the experiment of mice, but also because of the same mammals, and humans will have a relatively similar physiological structure, and genetic characteristics, with mice for experiments can have some reference value.
Rats bring both disaster and hope
Due to the strong reproductive ability of mice, its gestation period is short, the litter is large, and the life span can also reach about 3 years without threat, and the number of groups is huge, if it is not controlled, it will have a certain negative impact on the environment and agriculture.
For example, rats can spread diseases through their activities, their sharp teeth can eat crops, and they will run around on the road, but rats also have a certain value for existence.
In 1949, New China was just entering its infancy, and a very serious plague disease broke out in the northern part of the mainland, and 1,186 medical and health personnel in Tianjin, Beijing and other places participated in the epidemic prevention operation, and 2,000,000 doses of vaccines were ready to be sent to all parts of the country, and 84.42 million yuan was spent on epidemic prevention alone.
This is the disaster caused by rats, the rats gnaw on the food to bring the virus, people eat the contaminated food, the rat catching but failed to dispose of the rat carcasses, is also the main channel for the spread of the virus, because the rat plague has caused a series of diseases, which can cause about half of the human mortality rate, and the destructive power is also extremely strong.
The approximate mortality rate associated with rats makes people even more disgusted with the existence of mice, and they have carried out rat hunting operations, wanting to exterminate rats, but the vitality and reproductive ability of rats are vigorous, and humans can not kill them completely, and they can not be extinguished, and the rats with good speed and flexibility make people have a headache.
In 1968, an American started an experiment with mice, and predicted the possible future fate of human beings with a "mouse utopia" simulation experiment, and found that mice and humans are genetically similar, and gradually more scientists started related experiments on mice.
People began to use mice to test drugs, and found that it is a very good opportunity to solve the problem of mice, not only to complete the results of the experiment, but also to avoid the danger of using humans to do experiments, "mice" has become a synonym for the experimental subject, and mice have a new role here.
Human loss when rats disappear
Rats are naturally divided into many species, and their appearance is relatively similar, in addition to some advantages of loosening the soil or helping to clean up the ground, the status of rats as experimental subjects is more important.
Since human beings discovered that rats can have similar genes to humans in scientific research, people have begun more experiments on mice, and human research results will have a certain breakthrough in about 3 years, and the life span of mice can just reach a length of about three years.
And the mouse is smaller, and it will not occupy a large experimental space in the laboratory, which is a raw material that is superior to the research object, and because the style of the mouse in the world is too bad, human beings will always want to cut the grass and eradicate the mouse, but once there is no mouse, many human research will also be stagnant or slow.
In 2013, Chinese scientists, influenced by Harvard's experiment that "conjoined mice" could rejuvenate, started a planned experiment to make mice hermaphroditic, in order to achieve hormone sharing, the two mice were connected back to back.
At the same time, an artificial womb was transplanted for the castrated male mice, so that the male mice were successfully conceived and gave birth to newborn mice.
The process of the experiment depends on the genetic characteristics of the mouse itself, so for humans who are more similar in some characteristics, the experiment with the mouse will save the trouble of humans, and there will be more possibilities.
Of course, in addition to the more important position of rats as experimental objects, there are other types of rats in the rat family, such as voles and other mice, and their habits are also of great help and auxiliary to the production and life of human beings.
Rats steal food based on their natural tendency to hoard ingredients for winter, these animals will enter the preparation stage in advance in order to survive the cold winter, but because the rats also have small heads, the "hardworking" hoarding of food often can't be eaten or forget to eat, and the winter just passes.
Some of the food buried in the ground can sprout new sprouts, and new food plants will grow in the spring of the next year or another year, which can be used as a seed dispersal medium for plants, and for humans, this land can grow food because of the activities and sowing of rats, so human food can also be more abundant.
So once the rats really disappear, the experimental process will be more blocked, those animals that take rats as prey will be reduced, and the production and life of humans will become more mediocre.
Those mythical tales about rats
The wit of the mouse is obvious to all, and in the Chinese zodiac, the mouse can be ranked first, and it can also be seen that the world is still indispensable for the existence of rats and mice.
Legend has it that there could have been a cat in the zodiac and could have had a place in the rankings, but the mouse, who had a fairly good relationship with the cat at the time, probably didn't think so.
One day, the Jade Emperor decided to rank the animals in China, and told many animals to let them be ranked early the next morning, first served, so the animals would be eager to try or wait for the opportunity to reach the top of the heavenly court.
However, the cat is one of the more important animals, and even told the mouse to wake it up in the morning, which gave the mouse a chance, so early the next morning, the mouse did not wake up the cat, but went straight to heaven by himself, and because of his small and sensitive, he ran in front of many large animals.
And when the animals arrived one after another, the ranking was gradually formed, when the Jade Emperor was asking everyone's opinions, he found that the fluffy and pleasing looking cat was not among them, and he also asked the first mouse to arrive, but the mouse told the Jade Emperor about the black state.
The mouse also stated, "You shouldn't choose a cat, the Jade Emperor explained such an important ranking matter, the cat didn't take you seriously, and he was still sleeping!" So the Jade Emperor also looked down and saw that the cat was really still sleeping, so he was angry and never allowed the cat to go up to heaven again.
In this way, cats and mice no longer have a good relationship in the world, and this state of incompatibility has continued to this day, so that the mouse is not only clever, but also has the potential to be a "traitor", and the image of those legendary little mice is also very interesting.
And in Indian culture, they associate rats with wealth, and in our opinion, rats crossing the street are formed by stealing human food and running away, but India believes that if you see a rat passing through your home, or walking the road you usually take, then it is a good sign, which means that wealth will come to this person who can be associated with rats, which is also completely different from our philosophy.
In Norse mythology, an important god named Loki is the brother of Odin, the god of wisdom, who can transform into a variety of animal forms, including mouses, and he will take advantage of the size of transforming into rats, and will engage in some planning and espionage activities.
Even if rats do have some too hateful behaviors, but it is absolutely impossible to admit that there is no world without mice, although rats have brought many disasters to the world, but it is precisely because of the existence of rats that our human scientific research and development has more possibilities.
Everything has two sides, the existence of rats is not completely evil, we can rationally look at the activities of rats, take reasonable measures to catch rats, rats exist in the ecological environment, so that the same creatures that feed on rats have the possibility of continuing to survive, so it seems that rats can not all die.
(Disclaimer) The process and pictures described in the article are from the Internet, and this article aims to advocate positive social energy and no vulgar and other bad guidance. If it involves copyright or character infringement issues, please contact us in time, and we will delete the content as soon as possible! If there is any doubt about the incident, it will be deleted or changed immediately after contact.