Defensive behavior of laboratory and wild Rattus norvegicus

Abstract

Analysis of the defensive behaviors of wild rats to an inescapable approaching threat stimulus (the experimenter) indicated a pattern of freezing to distant stimuli, giving way to vocalization, jumps, and jump-attacks at shorter defensive distances. Comparisons of the defensive reactions of wild-trapped and laboratory-bred wild rats to a variety of threatening stimuli, in escapable as well as inescapable situations, indicated that the two wild strains were similar and consistently more defensive than laboratory rats to both human and conspecific threat stimuli. These results thus suggest that the defensive behaviors of rats have been substantially reduced during the process of domestication, with relatively little of this reduction being attributable to housing in standard laboratory conditions.