how smart the rodents

[seajae]

Had to get a massage today for a shoulder complaint so we were on the way through town when we stopped at a main intersection at a red light. It was around 2 pm and there on the foot path was a rat, walked to the edge of the gutter and looked at the cars stopped then promptly ran across the pedestrian crossing. When you see people that simply ignore the lights and the crossings I was astounded that a rat was showing more common sense than them, even my wife commented on it. Have to wonder just how smart some of these rodents are becoming, what I saw today blew me away, it crossed 6 lanes of traffic, things you see when you dont have a camera or phone with you.

[stoneyboy]

Really a thread on an Internet forum about clever rats.

Veiled attempt at Thai bashing or what ?

I'm not sure of its purpose.

So the rats here are far more clever than the Thais.

That's how I read it.

Yes or no ?

Blown away by a rat crossing the road,how mundane your life must surely be.

Edited February 5, 2016 by stoneyboy

[BookMan]

Really a thread on an Internet forum about clever rats.

Veiled attempt at Thai bashing or what ?

I'm not sure of its purpose.

So the rats here are far more clever than the Thais.

That's how I read it.

Yes or no ?

Blown away by a rat crossing the road,how mundane your life must surely be.

Sounded like an observation about a rat and how it had learned to use a pedestrian crossing to me

Could have been worse... could have been about gerbils

[chickenslegs]

Amazing!

All the traffic stopped at a red light you say.

[tonray]

I used to see it all the time when I lived in NYC. They would come out of meetings, blabbing on their cell phones to their brokers about this and that and instinctively avoid the traffic jams around Wall Street. Some even had Congress men on speed dial !

[cyberfarang]

Clever rats indeed. That`s nothing compared to the amazing frogs that live in my garden pond. Last week I was outside in the garden with a magazine in my hand taking it to throw away into my bin. Then I tripped slightly and dropped the magazine on the ground. Close by where the magazine lie on the ground was one of my frogs. It looked up at me and said in English; redit, redit, redit. This proves that Thai frogs have much more superior intelligence then the rats.

[seajae]

not thai basj=hing at all, just couldnr believe a rat could understand to look at the cars all stopped then run across the road.

Really a thread on an Internet forum about clever rats.

Veiled attempt at Thai bashing or what ?

I'm not sure of its purpose.

So the rats here are far more clever than the Thais.

That's how I read it.

Yes or no ?

Blown away by a rat crossing the road,how mundane your life must surely be.

not thai bashing at all, the amount of times I have had to slam on the brakes because someone just walks out in front of my car without looking or when they try to cross a pedestrian crossing when the lights are green is huge, to see a rat actually look at the cars all stopped at a red light(the lights had been red for a couple of minutes by this stage) and then run across the actual pedestrian crossing was quite surprising, especially when many people seem to do the opposite. I dont know about anyone else but I generally only see rats of a night time when not many people are about, this was just that bit different, maybe you guys that have rats running around you all day are just used to it, who knows.

Edited February 6, 2016 by seajae

[Daffy D]

In Farang land where traffic actually observe pedestrian crossing rules, dogs have been known to use the crossings.

Then there is the David Attenborough program about birds, crows if I remember correctly, that would carefully judge the speed of cars on motorways and dash into the road to pick on road kill without getting hit themselves.

In another program they were filming birds, again crows I think, that would use a pelican crossing (where there are go/stop lights for pedestrians to cross) to wait for a green light to place nuts in the road for cars to run over and crack open then retrieve the content when the light was green again.

[Richard W]

not thai basj=hing at all, just couldnr believe a rat could understand to look at the cars all stopped then run across the road.

<snip>

not thai bashing at all, the amount of times I have had to slam on the brakes because someone just walks out in front of my car without looking or when they try to cross a pedestrian crossing when the lights are green is huge, to see a rat actually look at the cars all stopped at a red light(the lights had been red for a couple of minutes by this stage) and then run across the actual pedestrian crossing was quite surprising, especially when many people seem to do the opposite.

Rats have had more generations to have road sense bred into them.

[casualbiker]

Really a thread on an Internet forum about clever rats.

Veiled attempt at Thai bashing or what ?

I'm not sure of its purpose.

So the rats here are far more clever than the Thais.

That's how I read it.

Yes or no ?

Blown away by a rat crossing the road,how mundane your life must surely be.

Stoney.. It was a Thai rat! Not Thai bashing. Just bashing stupid people who happen to be Thai!

[BudRight]

It was a farang rat.

[arjunadawn]

Silly OP for sure, but interesting to me. Last year, BKK. In laws had a rat above the drop ceiling on ground floor. It must have come up the fake wall in the bath that has the plumbing. It lived there for some time. When we began the process of getting rid of it we discovered that this rat had gnawed through 1.5" pvc pipe but only up to the point of enabling a trickle. This rat ID'd a water source and ate through the PVC to access it like a drinking straw. The teeth marks showed the carving of the pipe with each stroke. I was amazed.

This pic is from google but it was pretty much like this.

[tonray]

Silly OP for sure, but interesting to me. Last year, BKK. In laws had a rat above the drop ceiling on ground floor. It must have come up the fake wall in the bath that has the plumbing. It lived there for some time. When we began the process of getting rid of it we discovered that this rat had gnawed through 1.5" pvc pipe but only up to the point of enabling a trickle. This rat ID'd a water source and ate through the PVC to access it like a drinking straw. The teeth marks showed the carving of the pipe with each stroke. I was amazed.

This pic is from google but it was pretty much like this.

I have seen human chew marks on beer taps in Pattaya...perhaps we are evolving on a parallel path ?

[Thongkorn]

maybe the four legged Rats are more intelligent than the two,

[sirineou]

what you mostly see are the responsible rats, all the irresponsible rats are either a cats dinner, or road pizza. in fact even the ones you see being careful are really not that careful either, if they were you would not see them. The ones you dont see are the smart ones that are being really careful.

[flyDelight]

If you can't beat them - join them.

[up2u2]

A rat would not be able to visualise anything further than two feet away. Their world is VERY blurry. They also are color blind seeing more into the ultra violet spectrum. Their eyes are two inches off the ground making it impossible to visualise a landscape as a human does. A rat simply does not have the optic ability to negotiate 6 lanes of traffic or even visualise a pedestrian crossing. This incident was an entire 'leap of faith' and total good fortune on behalf of the rat.

[roamer]

Silly OP for sure, but interesting to me. Last year, BKK. In laws had a rat above the drop ceiling on ground floor. It must have come up the fake wall in the bath that has the plumbing. It lived there for some time. When we began the process of getting rid of it we discovered that this rat had gnawed through 1.5" pvc pipe but only up to the point of enabling a trickle. This rat ID'd a water source and ate through the PVC to access it like a drinking straw. The teeth marks showed the carving of the pipe with each stroke. I was amazed.

This pic is from google but it was pretty much like this.

I have seen human chew marks on beer taps in Pattaya...perhaps we are evolving on a parallel path ?

I might not be the only one to be concerned that we could be evolving on a parallel path to a Pattaya human.