The artwork could be the earliest evidence of such domestication, shedding light on the taming of an animal that is vital to biological and clinical research.
“The imperial paintings, The Silk Scroll of Three Rats, depicted domesticated brown rats with coat colour variation in China during AD1425–1435,” the team wrote in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal npj Heritage Science on April 12.
“It was more than two centuries older than the known record in Japan, presenting the earliest evidence of brown rat domestication.”
Brown rats, also known as common or street rats, are a widespread species of rat found around the world, but are believed to have originated in northern China and Mongolia.
The domesticated forms of the brown rat include fancy rats, which are kept as pets, as well as laboratory rats. Laboratory rats are one of the most common animals used in biological research, but tracing the early domestication of these creatures has proven challenging.
