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Rats are non-fictional terrestrial rodent mammals native to the planet Earth, where they exist in vast numbers, having permanently colonized every continent except Antarctica. There are 56 known species of rats on Earth, but the term "rat" is also used in the names of other small mammals that are not true rats (i.e., belonging to the genus Rattus), such as pack rats and Gambian pouched rats. Rats are recognized for their intelligence, resourcefulness, and even capacity for affection.
Rats are social animals, living in mixed-sex, multigenerational colonies of hundreds and creating a shared underground burrow system. Female rats are called does and male rats are called bucks while juvenile rats are called pups or pinkies. They are opportunistic omnivores and use scent to create paths outside of their burrows to forage along known as a trail system. Rats are either crepuscular or nocturnal. Wild rats are omnipresent in human societies, thriving off of human infrastructure, waste, and food while also sometimes functioning as vectors for the spread of certain zoonoses. Consequently, many human cultures have come to associate rats with infestation, uncleanliness, and pestilence in general.
However, humans also breed and raise domestic rats as pets called fancy rats, of which there are seven varieties. Cared-for fancy rats tend to be healthier and live longer than wild rats (around four years compared to a wild rat's average of eight months). Because humans and rats (along with colugos, lagomorphs, treeshrews, other primates, and other rodents) are more closely genetically related to each other than they are to any other mammals, rats are important to scientific research as laboratory rats where they function as analogues to human biology. All these related species are taxonomically classified together as the clade Euarchontoglires, also known as Supraprimates.
In TMNT[]
Rats are a significant species in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise as every version of the character Splinter is a rat. Certain other recurring fictional characters and technological inventions in TMNT are also associated with rats. Most versions of Baxter Stockman invented robotic machines called Mousers, whose primary function is to hunt and eat rats (making them a danger to rat characters like Splinter), but can also be directed for more insidious tasks like assassinations, bank robberies, the intentional collapse of city buildings, and mayhem in general.
The Rat King is also strongly associated with rats. Most iterations of this character have a supernatural influence over rats, having the ability to compel them to swarm specific areas or against specific targets. Some iterations of the Rat King can use this same power of persuasion to compel ordinary rats to be his eyes and ears, acting as spies and informants. However, most iterations of the Rat King are themselves actually humans rather than rats.
Mirage[]
In the Mirage continuity, Splinter is Hamato Yoshi's pet rat who develops human characteristics after being exposed to mutagen while inside the New York City sewers.
IDW[]
In the IDW continuity, Splinter is the reincarnation of the human Hamato Yoshi, but is born into his new life as an otherwise ordinary laboratory rat at StockGen.
2014 film series[]
In the 2014 film series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Splinter is a Sacks Group Ltd. laboratory rat who is injected with mutagen by Doctor O'Neil that activates after he escapes the Sacks laboratory alongside the Ninja Turtles.
2003 TV series[]
In the 2003 TV series, Hamato Splinter begins his life as Hamato Yoshi's beloved pet rat before escaping into the sewers of New York City and becoming covered in mutagen as one of the mutagen-covered Ninja Turtles shakes it off of himself. A quartet of Ninja Rats resides in the D'Hoonnib sewers as seen in "Turtles in Space, Part 1: The Fugitoid".
2012 TV series[]
In the 2012 TV series, Hamato Yoshi is mutated into a rat after unintentionally stepping on a rat during an alleyway skirmish with Kraangdroids that results in him coming in contact with mutagen. Splinter hallucinates that the Rat King urges him to consume ordinary rats in "Darkest Plight".
Rise of the TMNT[]
In Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Lou Jitsu befriends a rat in his Battle Nexus cell which becomes the cause of his mutation into a rat. It travels with him to Baron Draxum's laboratory and despite Lou Jitsu trying to free the rat during his laboratory escape, it merely bites his hand before running away moments prior to Lou Jitsu being sprayed with mutagen overhead. In the original timeline where the Krang apocalypse occurred, Casey Jones II claims that people ate rats to fend off starvation.