Rodents: rats & mice

RODENTS are the largest and most widespread group of mammals (warm-blooded vertebrates) in the world. Though they didn’t originally occur in so many places, they’re highly adaptable and as people travelled across the globe through the centuries, rodents went with them in their ships and cargo and so spread to almost every part of the planet.

The word “rodent” comes from the Latin , meaning “to gnaw”. This name comes from the fact that a rodent’s single pair of front teeth (incisors) never stop growing. Rodents need to continuously gnaw on hard things to wear their incisors down and to keep them at the correct length