expulsion of young before weaning was complete, Among the aberrations in behavior were the following: This period between day 315 and day 600 saw a breakdown in social structure and in normal social behavior. The population reached 620 by day 315, after which the population growth dropped markedly. Initially the population grew rapidly, doubling every 55 days. The only adversity was the limit on space. There was no shortage of food or water or nesting material. The "tunnels" gave access to nesting boxes, food hoppers, and water dispensers. Each side had four groups of four vertical, wire mesh "tunnels". The universe was a 9-foot (2.7 m) square metal pen with 54-inch-high (1.4 m) sides. In July 1968 four pairs of mice were introduced into the Utopian universe. Universe 25-the biggest, best mousetopia of all, built after a quarter century of research-failed to break this pattern. It was a pattern that would not collapse. The story of the 1968 “Universe 25” collapse. “There could be no escape from the behavioral consequences of rising population density,” Still, at a certain point, each of these paradises collapsed. Like a rodent real estate developer, he incorporated ever-better amenities: climbable walls, food hoppers that could serve two dozen customers at once, lodging he described as “walk-up one-room apartments.”Ī Video records of his experiments show Calhoun with a pleased smile and a pipe in his mouth, color-coded mice scurrying over his boots. Universe 25 photograph with it’s inventor. Some of these featured rats, while others focused on mice instead. Then he built another and another, hopping between patrons that supported his research, and framing his work in terms of population: How many individuals could a rodent city hold without losing its collective mind? The 1954 rodent utopia.īy 1954, he was working under the auspices of the National Institute of Mental Health, which gave him whole rooms to build his rodentopias. Then taking the lessons learned, he built another. Then he redesigned the structure, and built another. Intrigued, Calhoun built another, slightly bigger rat metropolis-this time in a barn, with ramps connecting several different rooms. This fascinated Calhoun-if the rats had everything they needed, what was keeping them from overrunning his little city, just as they had all of Baltimore? Why couldn’t they thrive in a rodent utopia? The subsequent utopias. They started acting weirdly, rolling dirt into balls rather than digging normal tunnels. At that point, the rats became too stressed to reproduce. He expected to be able to house 5,000 rats there, but over the two years he observed the city, the population never exceeded 150. In 1947, to keep a close eye on his charges, Calhoun constructed a quarter-acre “rat city” behind his house, and filled it with breeding pairs. The only adversity: space limitation – the size of the habitat was predicted to host 3840 mice.Limited opportunities for transmissible disease.No shortage of food, water and nesting material.Rat utopia living arrangements within Universe 25. These adventures eventually led him to a doctorate in biology, and then a job in Baltimore, where he was tasked with studying the habits of Norway rats, one of the city’s chief pests. Calhoun & Their Cultural Influence,” Calhoun spent his childhood traipsing around Tennessee, chasing toads, collecting turtles, and banding birds. The man who played mouse-God and came up with this doomed universe was named John Bumpass Calhoun.Īs Edmund Ramsden and Jon Adams detail in a paper, “ Escaping the Laboratory: The Rodent Experiments of John B. They couldn’t have known the truth: that within a few years, they and their descendants would all be dead. They must have thought they were the luckiest mice in the world. The residents of “Universe 25” were mostly left alone, save for one man who would peer at them from above, and his team of similarly interested assistants. Which, of course, is constantly interrupted by white-coated humans with scalpels or syringes. It was even better than your average lab mouse’s life. There were no predators, no cats, no traps, no long winters. Of course, this is a far cry from a wild mouse’s life. They were given the run of the place, which had everything they might need: food, water, climate control, hundreds of nesting boxes to choose from, and a lush floor of shredded paper and ground corn cob. The mice themselves were bright and healthy, hand-picked from the institute’s breeding stock. It was about the size of a small storage unit. Maybe “box” isn’t the right word for it the space was more like a room, known as “Universe 25”, and it was large. On July 9th, 1968, eight white mice were placed into a strange box at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. What would be more appropriate than to discuss RAT lifestyle in urban centers? Well, it's gonna be the year of the rat in a few days.
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