Rats are very disgusting animals. Many people eat the food they just bought at home before they even open it and taste it. People usually gnash their teeth when talking about this animal. From ancient times to the present, people have used various methods to try to eliminate them, such as rodent killer strong, mouse traps, mouse traps, etc., but every time they ended in failure!
Mice have strong reproductive and survival capabilities. A pair of mice can give birth to 6 to 8 litters a year, and one litter can have 5 to 10 animals. At this rate of reproduction, if there is sufficient food and no outside intervention, a rat plague will occur within a few years. Therefore, its population is also quite large, and they can be found all over the world.
Rats are also very adaptable to their living environment, and can become their homes from fields to city streets. Their food sources are also relatively wide, and they basically accept everyone who comes. They can feed themselves with the leftovers left by people. So there are more rats in the world than there are people!
"Nasty" mice
Such a large group of mice have also become super carriers of germs . Rats carrying these germs do not become sick themselves, but they can contaminate food or water through their activities or feces, which can cause illness when eaten by humans and livestock.
The " Black Death" in medieval Europe was initially further spread through these mice. These small animals silently carried the virus into castles and ships, etc. Human beings simply could not eliminate these "poisoners", Eventually Europe lost at least one-third of its population in the plague, with the death toll at around 25 million. It can be seen that the harm caused by rats is huge.
Whenever there is a good harvest, rats will eat a large number of crops and destroy the fields. The farmer uncle finally waited for the harvest season, only to find that he got nothing. A year's hard work and waiting were all in vain!
At the same time, mice are rodent creatures, and their teeth will continue to grow, so they often have the habit of grinding their teeth . In life, they will bite people's wires, paper boxes, books, clothes, etc., thus causing certain economic losses to humans.
What will happen after the mice become extinct?
We often say: "Everyone shouts to beat a rat crossing the street." This sentence has shown that we hate rats deeply. So what will happen if all rats in the world are extinct? Will it be as good as we imagined?
The answer is of course no. According to conservative estimates, there are about 20 to 30 billion rats in the world. If all these rats die, it means that more than 20 billion other animals will be needed to replace the rats. However, this is impossible.
Every living thing on the earth has its corresponding responsibilities and uses. Rats also play an important role in nature and are an important link in the food chain.
All living things in the world are in the food chain, and they are interconnected with each other, and every link is very important. They are interdependent and restrict each other. The ecosystem is a complete whole. If a creature suddenly becomes extinct, it will break the original food chain, and the originally orderly ecosystem will be destroyed like dominoes.
Take mice as an example. They have a wide range of food sources, including crops such as potatoes and corn, as well as small insects such as grasshoppers and locusts. At the same time, mice have also become meals for owls, , cats, snakes and other animals.
If mice disappear, insects such as grasshoppers and locusts will multiply in large numbers, and their numbers will increase dramatically. Locusts that are too large in number will consume a large amount of food, and crops will be severely damaged, causing huge losses to farmers.Compared with the damage caused by rats to crops, these insects cause greater harm and can even cause farmers to lose their harvest.
Likewise for predators such as owls and cats, the disappearance of mice will reduce their food sources. Some of the predators will even die due to lack of food, while others will prey on other animals in large numbers. The extinction of rats will not only cause the death of the above-mentioned predators, but will also cause other animals to be hunted in large numbers.
The ecosystem will no longer be balanced, and the scale will tilt in one direction. The extinction of one organism will lead to changes in the number of other organisms in its biological chain. Some species that have lost their natural enemies may increase sharply in a short period of time, but their numbers will slowly decrease as time goes by.
At the same time, mice also play the role of communication media in nature. Many plants naturally fall off the tree after their seeds mature, and passing rats may use them as part of their food or accidentally carry them on their fur. When rats excrete feces, these seeds are carried out with them and take root and germinate on the spot. At the same time, some seeds carried on the fur will be scattered elsewhere when the mice move, further achieving the purpose of spreading and planting. It has to be said that mice can be called a competent "mediator".
Of course, mice are not the only spreaders of seeds, but because of their huge number, they play a relatively high role in the spread process.
Therefore, if mice become extinct, these plants will not be able to successfully complete seeding, and the number of many plants will be severely reduced, and may even lead to extinction.
In any case, the extinction of rats will lead to the destruction of ecological diversity in nature.
In cities, people produce a large amount of kitchen waste every day, which is often thrown directly into the trash can. Under normal circumstances, rats will eat these "leftover garbage" as food to prevent them from rotting and causing a foul odor. So if there are no mice at this time, a large amount of food will accumulate, and toxic gases produced by fermentation will spread in the air, people's living environment will further deteriorate, and the elderly and children who are relatively weak may even get sick easily. To a certain extent, rats have also made a certain contribution to the cleanliness of the city.
A suitable number of rats will do more good than harm to humans. If we find the right way to deal with them, humans can also coexist peacefully with rats. At the same time, mice are also indispensable in nature. They have their own mission and contribute to the stability of the entire ecosystem.
Although mice can spread germs, if we keep the environment clean and tidy to avoid bacterial growth, the risk of plague will be greatly reduced!
In short, even if we do not like this animal, we should leave a certain living space for it. From an overall perspective, this is more beneficial to our natural ecology. At the same time, as long as we keep our home clean and tidy and store food well, we can also reduce the number of times we see them in our lives!
References
[1] The "unsung hero" of the plant world [J]. Yang Feng. Youth Science and Technology Expo. 2002(12)
[2] The "environmental defender" of the plant world[J]. Zhang Changying. Scientific Enlightenment. 2019 (07)
[3] Research on the level of plague cell immunity[J]. Xie Shouqiao, Wang Ruiguo, Cun Yongliang, Xu Liancang, Weng Jianhua, Zhang Jian. Chinese Journal of Endemic Disease Prevention and Control. 1996(05)
Author οΌDecember Preliminary review: Ding Haier Proofreading Editor: W
