Do rats have bones? How can they fit in such small holes?

If you have rats in your home then you are quite aware that they can easily get around in your home. The smallest holes or cracks in your wall or in your furniture become an easy access point for a rat to be able to move around your house with the limited barriers.



What is so amazing is that a rat can fit through the smallest areas to be able to get away or to move to a different location in your home. Because of the way that they are able to sneak and contort their body to be able to get into the wall or through a crack in your furniture it may make you wonder do rats have bones at all? In all honesty, how are they able to fit in such small holes?

The truth of the matter is a rat has 223 bones in its body. Surprisingly, that is 17 more than the average human being has. It is interesting that these small animals have even more bones than us but there is no way that we would be able to fit through a whole of comparable size in proportion to a rat. So how are they able to accomplish this?

While a rat may have more bones than a person, the way that their bodies are designed is significantly different than that of a human being. They have a spinal cord and ribs that are protecting the important organs of the body, but the way that the muscles around their rib cage work is a lot different than that of a human being.

In a human being, the rib cage is designed to be a sturdy structure that not only protects internal organs that ensures that the person is able to have a frame upon which they can stand. Your rib cage and spinal cord play an integral part in ensuring that you are able to maintain an upright position. Without the way that your body is designed you would crumble.

That is not the case for a rat. These animals do not have the kind of same sturdy rib cage that human being has. In fact, while these bones do protect the internal structure of the rat, they are designed to be able to push in and expand to accommodate this rodent’s ability to be able to sneak into small holes and cracks that it may encounter.

Without this ability, the rat would be a sitting duck. It needs this flexibility within its rib cage so that it can get away from would be predators. A rat has so little defenses when it comes to many of the predators that would pursue it, and so this is one of its key measures that it is able to employ to be able to get away. Without the flexibility they would be done for. That may not be pleasant thought for you, someone who wants to see these animals out of your home, but this is their means of survival. Read more: Rat Control, Get Rats Out of the Attic, Rat Trapping, Rats in the Ceiling, Rat Feces.