The Black Death may have been due to cute gerbils, not dirty mice

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Common sense tells us that the Black Death spread widely throughout Europe due to dirty sick rats. Now get ready to open your eyes (and find new pets): according to new research, gerbils are most likely to be the culprits.

The Black Death – the plague of lymph glands endemic in the mid-14th century, causing the death of most Europeans and the lasting effects of modern civilization – rats have long been the subject of condemnation. They ran to the boats, circled the continents with disease-ridden fleas, then jumped on people, spread the plague — and then the story began.

According to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, gerbils — the unique, scary-sounding giant gerbils — are more likely to have originated. Scientists in Europe study tree rings to decide based on historical weather patterns and then compare historical records of plague outbreaks.

They found that the plague outbreak was closely related to warm and wet weather in the Asian region, but not in Europe — meaning that the plague was most likely lurking in Asia and then spread to Europe via gerbils along the Silk Roads. So the next time you want to keep a gerbil and hope to amuse you for 7 years, remember: its cute paws have 200 million European blood on them.

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