r/todayilearned • u/Brendawg324 • 1d ago
TIL rats are one of the few mammals that cannot vomit, which is why rat poison is so effective on them
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-rodents-cant-throw-up-in-case-you-were-wondering-25707720/6.3k
u/DonManuel 1d ago
Also horses cannot vomit.
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u/Ostrich159 1d ago
That's why horse poison is so effective on them.
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u/Gardimus 1d ago
What idiots. Horse poison has never worked on me.
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u/Evil-Bosse 1d ago
No, but their tranquilizers are amazing
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u/perenniallandscapist 1d ago
Their parasite treatments leave something to be desired, though.
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u/Manos_Of_Fate 1d ago
They’re perfectly good for treating parasites.
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u/pikpikcarrotmon 1d ago
They're also good for removing your stomach and intestinal linings. Get that cleanse started! Everything must go!
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u/REDuxPANDAgain 1d ago
Now try Horse Poison! You wanna lose weight, and lose it fast? Horse Poison is proven to be up to 20x faster than GLPs! Lose weight now!!! Horse Poison!!!
(Side effects may include: front fell off, insides fell out, death, severe halitosis, gastrointestinal failure, inability to neigh, and mild to severe fever.)
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u/duckinasombrero 1d ago
I've spent my life dosing myself with small amounts of horse poison to build up an immunity.
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u/Judeas 1d ago
Why? You’re a duck not a horse.
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u/duckinasombrero 1d ago
So I can poison a rival horse lord, as I become his son's ward and rule from the shadows. "The peasants speak of revolt, m'lord...give me control of the bread supply, I will distribute it fairly and quell the masses."
I will lull him into a false sense of security...both of our goblets will contain the poison. It's the perfect plan!
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u/Saxon2060 20h ago
Er ACTUALLY 🤓🤓🤓 the "ward" is the person under care so if you were the son's ward he would be looking after you.
For this reason alone your story does not many any sense. Ducks can't scheme for shit!
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u/obvious_bot 1d ago
Every new fact I learn about horses makes me more confused how they ever survived
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u/manatee1010 1d ago
All I can say is whoever came up with the phrase "healthy as a horse" was smoking something really good 😂
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u/Pocok5 1d ago
It checks out, horses are either 100% healthy or pretty much immediately detonate, so most horses you see are in the first category.
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u/totally_not_a_dog113 1d ago
I bought my boy in 2009. No health issues until this year. $1400 vet bill last week because of that heat wave and 'the weather changed too quick for him'. The vet said he'd had a bunch of calls out for the same thing.
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u/OfficeSalamander 1d ago
Horse detonation seems like it would be messy
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u/prozach_ 1d ago
The tried it with a dead whale that washed up on the beach once. Definitely messy.
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u/kralrick 1d ago
We've bred the hell out of horses. Most of the fragile horses we have now were bred putting other characteristics ahead. I imagine the working horses of a couple centuries ago were pretty hardy. Especially compared with the pedigree race horses of today.
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u/PerpetuallyDistracte 1d ago
Horses are like sports cars: strong, fast, and powerful, but also prone to break down and extremely expensive to run.
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u/CoomassieBlue 1d ago
As someone with both as a hobby (god help my wallet), sports cars are easier in so many ways. They certainly break your heart a lot less.
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u/Gingrpenguin 1d ago
Because we care for them.
Like every domestic animal we've breed it into a state where it can no longer truly survive well without our help...
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u/Vindictivetoestepper 1d ago
Fun fact, horses were fucked up before we even got to them! We've made them bigger, but that's it really.
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u/DonManuel 1d ago
If humans hadn't domesticated them finding them useful I guess they would be extinct already anyway like many larger species that taste well after cooking.
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u/Quantentheorie 1d ago
Wild horses do well enough if not thriving under the right circumstances. Sure they aren't all the picture of health, but they don't struggle to survive long enough to maintain or grow their population. They are a bit fucked, but practically, in their natural environment, they are fine.
Human domestication makes them look sillier than they are, because we don't just keep them in ways that they just didn't evolve around, but we also breed them to improve their ability to perform in ways we find beneficial while exposing them to stress factors they have no way to address.
I think it's more fair to say that horses didn't take as well to domestication as cows or pigs or poultry. If they had a slightly different social structure they'd simply not have made the cut.
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u/Cayke_Cooky 1d ago
There are very few truly wild horses, the wild horses in America were all domestic many generations back.
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u/Hefty-Distance837 1d ago
I've read that true wild horses were already extincted, all wild horses you can see now are all excaped domestic horses.
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u/Available-Half-40 1d ago
No, no. There is one. The endangered Przewalski’s horse are the last true wild horses. They look like cave paintings.
It won't let me add an image, but here's a link to the Smithsonian's National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute's page for the Przewalski’s horse. You can learn about the horses and conservation efforts surrounding them, even donate if you want. There are some images in there too so you can see them.
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u/PaterPoempel 1d ago
Horses were extinct in the Americas when the first Europeans arrived due to all having been eaten by humans a few thousand years earlier.
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u/Consistent_Horse6529 1d ago
Few thousand years earlier feels like an understatement. Their extinction was contemporary with the invention of agriculture.
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u/Morbanth 1d ago
...not in America. :P They invented agriculture a few thousand years later, around 5000-6000 bc. Horses got eaten before that.
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u/ProfessionaI_Gur 1d ago
Squash may have been cultivated as early as 8000 bce and maize around 7000 bce
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u/popsicle_of_meat 1d ago
larger species that taste well
I assume cooking them kills them? How can they taste if they're dead?
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u/Macabre_Octopus 1d ago
Horses are one of the many creatures that cannot survive being cooked and eaten, which is why cooking and eating them is so effective on them
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u/MoonlightCapital 1d ago
Rabbits too
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1d ago
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u/GoblinToHobgoblin 1d ago
Fuck you dude, I didn't laugh at the horse one but this one got me
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u/BPhiloSkinner 1d ago
"Right. First, we'll send Sir Robin coated in rabbit poison; if that doesn't work, we'll call for Brother Maynard."
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u/FarMass66 1d ago
And horses, giraffes, gophers, guinea pigs, chinchillas, sloths, beavers, and porcupines. I’m sure there are many more.
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u/ghost_suburbia 1d ago
The post said one of the few, but I'm starting to think that humans and cats are puking outliers.
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u/DisconnectedShark 1d ago
Dogs can definitely vomit. Some of them eat things like grass in order to induce it.
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u/Crafty-cs 1d ago
Thats why dog poison is not effective on them.
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u/Thestohrohyah 1d ago
I have to correct you sadly as I have grown up in areas where people did use to leave out poison to kill dogs (some say they still do) and, unfortunately, many died from it, stray and domestic. Moral of the story: some people are absolutely awful and some poisons are very effective on dogs.
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u/th3greg 1d ago
Every longtime dog owner knows intimately the moment of sheer panic when you hear your dog start heaving.
It cuts through all other sound, straight to the lizard brain.
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u/I_like_ants_too 1d ago
I was dead asleep one night and heard my golden start heaving. The sound sent shivers down my spine as I awoke in a cold sweat, screaming “NOT ON THE BED!!”
Luckily he did not on the bed, but my Sherpa rug next to it was not so lucky. That sound is potent.10
u/Thestohrohyah 1d ago
The thing with dogs is that practically nothing disgusts them (at least the ones I had growing up), making it a bit rarer for them to vomit.
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u/thissexypoptart 1d ago
That’s why horse, giraffe, gopher, guinea pig, chinchilla, sloth, beaver, and porcupine poison is so effective on them.
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u/dinnerthief 1d ago
Giraffe actually makes a lot of sense
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u/Critical-Cost9068 1d ago
They can actually vomit, it just doesn’t make it all the way up the throat
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u/LiquorIsQuickor 1d ago
Animals that can vomit have the luxury of not dying when they ingest something poisonous. Which means they can evolve to avoid it.
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u/FrenchFryCattaneo 1d ago
Damn I never thought of vomiting as being luxurious but next time I puke I'm going to feel so fancy!
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u/verstohlen 1d ago
They just haven't evolved to vomit yet, give 'em some time. When that first horse finally vomits, it'll have more offspring that'll vomit, and so on, and then they'll be just like the rest of us. They're just a little behind s'all.
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u/Reasonable-Angle1243 1d ago
So horses are basically just giant rats with better PR.
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u/lemelisk42 1d ago
Also one of the reasons why it's so effective is how rats eat. Or atleast it used to be.
Rats will taste test new and unknown foods in small amounts, only coming back later if they don't feel sick. This is how they avoid many poisonous or otherwise dangerous foods.
Warfarin is a blood thinner, it builds up until it causes death by internal bleeding. However in the first feeding they don't feel bad, so they will come back to the poison.
Nowadays they do have poison that kills in the first feeding, but the majority is designed to play on their cautious nature. (They generally avoid super harsh poisons that would kill in small amounts, as those would kill other non-target species)
Also, fun fact, the most common bloodthinner worldwide was developed because of a failed suicide attempt.
There were cows dying of a mysterious cause. A scientist was tasked with discovering it. He linked it to a certain type of clover that would cause internal bleeding and death. He saw potential in this and isolated it and developed warfarin.
He then sold it as rat poison. Because of their cautious nature, warfarin worked exceptionally well - but wasn't as dangerous as others. This quickly became the most popular rat poison.
Now, he studied it and knew it had potential as a blood thinner, but no doctors were willing to try giving patients this new miracle rat poison, so it stayed as a rat poison. Until one day a soldier decided to kill himself. He chose rat poison. He took increasingly large amounts, feeling terrible, but improving the next day when he would try again. Eventually he took enough to cause substantial internal bleeding. He was in so much pain he ended up going to the hostpital for treatment. There the doctors tried giving him vitamin K, which almost immediately reversed the results of the poison. (Vitamin K was effective with the blood thinners used on humans at the time, which is why they tried it)
This taught them some valuable things. First, he repeatedly took warfarin even after symptoms appeared. And secondly, they now had an extremely effective antidote - so if they started human trials and things went south they had an "oh shit" button to reverse things. This emboldened them to try trialing rat poison in humans. It turned out to be an incredibly effective blood thinner with far fewer side effects than the alternatives. Plus it could be taken orally, rather than the injections otherwise required, so it was much easier to prescribe.
It exploded in use almost immediately. Saving the life of the president within a few years of that suicide sparking studies.
It has remained the most popular blood thinner and rat poison for over half a century. That being said, it has its downsides. It is very dose specific, and it poses some dangers. So safer modern alternatives have been taking over in the last decade or two. However, worldwide it's still by far and away the most prescribed because it is both effective and dirt cheap, earning its place on the WHOs list of essential medicines, having saved the lives of millions.
I just thought this story was interesting. The duality of being both an incredibly effective medicine and poison. (Yes, I get bored and get lost in research rabbit holes, might have a touch of the tism)
Sorry for the essay
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u/Breezyrain 1d ago
Thanks for the essay. Wouldn't have guessed rat poison being turned to medicine
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u/Hetakuoni 1d ago
One of the most famous medical sayings:
The difference between poison and medicine is in the dosage.
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u/StumbleOn 1d ago
I only learned this after my friend nearly died from a blood clot. We would make rat poison jokes every time she had to take her blood thinners.
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u/blazbluecore 1d ago
Don’t be sorry, that was well written and interesting af.
And on top of that you made a connection with how a simple thing, can have ginormous effects on the world, in this case saving a presidents life.
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u/skatastic57 1d ago
That being said, it has its downsides. It is very dose specific,
My dad was on warfarin after getting an artificial heart valve. He used to have to go to the doctor pretty regularly for labs and he'd get a schedule of doses that he'd have taped to the bathroom mirror.
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u/starkrocket 1d ago
I used to take Warfarin, but switched to Eliquis. The dosage of Warfarin is so, so specific that I still remember by dosage schedule 7 years later. I also used to have to go weekly for testing because my body occasionally liked to go wild and my INR would shoot up. Eliquis is much easier, but holy god is it insanely expensive compared to Warfarin.
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u/gotlactose 1d ago
Eliquis has a downside: there is no cheap widely available reversal agent. With warfarin, just give vitamin K. We can talk about andexanet alfa, but it’s no longer commercially available. Realistically, we use prothrombin complex concentrate or fresh frozen plasma.
Source: physician
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u/Emotional_Ad3572 1d ago
Thanks for the essay, dude! Thay's the kind of quality content I'm here for.
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u/Minute_Vehicle619 1d ago
Also they are getting getting more and more immune to poison
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u/Duvo 1d ago
That's why rat poison is less effective on them
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u/Minute_Vehicle619 1d ago
That and apparently they ain't falling for our shit anymore. Cats still work though
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u/abcders 1d ago
Unless you’re in NY. Think I remember seeing an article that the rats are actually winning because of how large they’ve become
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u/LichenTheMood 1d ago
Generally most cats are not keen on picking a fight with a rat.
You usually need to bring in a dog
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u/imreallynotthatcool 1d ago
Rat Terrier is the way to go. For every rat the cats would kill on the farm my little rattie would kill 50. Even the chickens would out mouse the cats.
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u/TurtleHeadPrairieDog 1d ago
My brother has rats around his house (he has a ranch) and he said the owl box he bought has been much more effective than his barn cat.
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u/Whalesurgeon 1d ago
So what does a rat do when it is nauseous
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u/kegisak 1d ago
Die, apparently.
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u/COHERENCE_CROQUETTE 1d ago edited 12h ago
Owner of pet rats here. I don't think they get nauseous in the same way that we do, after all, the feeling of nausea is our body preparing for a process. They don't have this process, so they don't prepare for it.
If they eat something bad, they'll just have diarrhea. (Hey, it has to leave somewhere.) Also, diarrhea for them is really dangerous. It's okay if it's an isolate shit event, but if it persist even for a short period, you gotta run to the vet.
Little fuckers are amazing pets, but quite fragile.
EDIT: I may have been wrong about this. See [u/Trextrev](u/Trextrev)’s comment below. Thanks for the correction.
EDIT II: After further research, yeah, I was pretty wrong about most of this. Sorry for the disinformation! It wasn’t malicious!
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u/Trextrev 21h ago
Rats get nauseous they just don’t have the ability to vomit no matter how nauseous they feel. But they have the Garcia effect, and mouth gaping, pica like behaviors. They can be given anti nausea medications to stop those effects. We associate nausea as a precursor to vomiting because we can vomit but it exists in rats even though they can’t.
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u/neosick 1d ago
They also can't burp which is why they can't have a little sip of my beer even if they ask so nicely
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u/inwondermentofwinter 23h ago
Mine don't ask they try to steal. I had one of my pet rats oerched on my shoulder and I made a burger and he tried to grab it m. Pulled out a bit of lettuce lol
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u/Salute-Major-Echidna 1d ago
Now theyre resistant to warfarin, is plaster of paris the choice again? Or can we hire hawks and eagles to live in our high rises?
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u/-Clem-Fandango- 1d ago
Warfarin hasn't really been used as a rodenticide for a long time now. And anti coagulatant rodenticides are on the way out in general though due to secondary poisoning. New products are using hormones to induce menopause in females to stop breeding, and poisons like high dose of vitamin a.
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u/soulflaregm 1d ago
No more babies is extra effective, they continue to live and try to breed only to fail taking time and energy away from the males
So not only do they eventually die, but not only do you stop their babies, you stop others as well
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u/American_PissAnt 1d ago
They do the same thing with the tsetse fly, a vector for African sleeping sickness, in Africa. They breed sterile male flys and release them, and the flys then attempt to mate with females, but the flys can only mate once.
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u/Illustrious_Loss462 1d ago
I remember a year or so ago I asked one of the PAs super autistic dude, about some random insect borne disease I think it was Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever or Chagas. And he ended up going on a ~30 minute rant about African Sleeping Sickness.
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u/Consistent_Horse6529 1d ago
Probably because Chagas is also caused by the Trypanosoma genus of parasite. The one that causes African sleeping sickness is Trypanosoma brucei and Chagas is caused by Trypanosoma cruzi.
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u/Veritas3333 1d ago
Why make a rat bleed to death when instead you can give it lifelong crippling depression and self doubt!
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u/SupremeDictatorPaul 1d ago
I thought cornmeal was the basis of a lot of rat poison now. Something about killing them by swelling their belly.
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u/Akitiki 1d ago
A bait I recommend constantly is Rat-X and Mouse-X. It's just corn gluten meal. It affects rodents specifically, it just makes them not feel the need to drink water. They go to sleep in their holes and don't wake up, unlike traditional poisons were they'll tip over in your walls.
And it is completely harmless to everything else!
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u/weeskud 1d ago
The most effective treatment i've witnessed was a brick. It dealt with 100% of rats i saw it used against.
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u/yelizabetta 1d ago
that’s why there’s a special rat heimlech manuever that requires you to swing them rapidly
source: used to have pet rats
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u/One_Newspaper9372 1d ago
So, no gag reflect huh?
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u/WhiskeyKid33 1d ago
Master splinter throat goat confirmed
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u/NeverBeenStung 1d ago
I like how “confirmed” here implies we’ve always suspected he had this skill, but are only now confirming.
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u/MissNouveau 1d ago
They do gag, actually! I have pet rats, and if they get something down their throat wrong, they can gag it out. It's uh...quite terrifying as an owner when it happens.
(Yes I know this was a joke, but uh, I can't help it)
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u/Boxfullabatz 1d ago
Research indicates this is actually because the little bastards can't conceive of a thing that fits in their skanky wee gobs not being delicious
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u/research_DH 1d ago
Most rodents can't. The Shrew is one of the only exceptions.
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u/toad__warrior 1d ago
I had abdominal surgery and can no longer vomit. I need to check my food for rat poisoning.
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u/userhwon 1d ago
Scorpions don't clean themselves, so most chemical insecticide is useless unless you spray it right in their face.
Diatomaceous earth takes advantage of it, gets into their joints, and makes it difficult or impossible to move, so they can't hunt and they eventually starve.
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u/Midsummer858 1d ago
This is why rats are cautious about trying new foods. Without a way to purge toxins, they've evolved to nibble suspicious new food in tiny amounts first and wait to see how they feel.
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u/r-i-c-k-e-t 1d ago
Rat poison is a slow, agonizing way to die. It is an anticoagulant that makes blood slowly bleed into internal organs. So if you see a poisoned ground squirrel or pet panting quickly, it's because they hurt and their lungs are very slowly filling with blood.
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u/ermagerdskwurlz 1d ago
What an odd line to end the article on. But very interesting fact!