“I’ve always been a bit of a rat fanatic and have had pet rats in the past.”Ward writes, adding: “Like us, and like so many other social animals, they spend much of their lives among a clique of friends, relatives, and neighbors.”
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The rats build colonies, underground cities made up of little chambers where bad neighbors are punished and good ones are rewarded. the rats share food and they are more likely to donate a bite if their neighbor is hungry.
Ward stated that they “give help on an as-needed basis,” meaning they are attuned to the plight of their peers.. This charitable behavior similar to the “feel good factor” of donating to a charity or volunteering at a soup kitchen.
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Rats can be considered fearsome pests
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“Scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”
When a more needy rat receives a handout, he will often reciprocate by offering you a caress. Rat massage not only rewards the generous rat but “encourages rats to give food to their rat massager the next time the need arises, or to reciprocate with some effort of their own.” Ward calls it a philosophy of “scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”which the field of animal studies calls reciprocal altruism.
“Within this system, good character runs deeper than simply being willing to offer food,” the researcher writes, adding: “When deciding whether to pass bites to a recipient, rats take into account that recipient’s recent behavior toward them.”
Rats remember who has been generous and who has been stingy, and will be less likely to give food to a hungry rat than in the past was greedy. Rats that are particularly aggressive or antisocial are excluded from the reciprocal network.
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