A New York City rat in a flower boxWIKIMEDIA, DAVID SHANKBONEAny New Yorker knows that rats are an almost daily reality of living in the sprawling metropolis. But researchers have uncovered a secret harbored by the ubiquitous rodents; some of New York City’s rats have Oriental rat fleas (Xenopsylla cheopis), which are known to carry plague bacteria (Yersinia pestis) and other pathogens.
A team of entomologists, virologists, and immunologists trapped 133 Norway rats in Manhattan over a 10-month period and recorded the insects, arachnids, and pathogenic bacteria associated with the rodents. About 6,500 parasites were found on the rats, including several mite species, a louse species, and rat fleas. The team, led by investigators in New York, published its results this week (March 2) in the Journal of Medical Entomology. The researchers did find a few different bacterial species from genus Bartonella, which can cause disease in humans, but they detected neither the plague bacterium nor the bacteria that can cause murine typhus.
“If these rats carry fleas that could transmit the plague to people, then the pathogen itself is the only piece missing from the transmission ...
