Ancient Web: Anne Hanson Built a 2003 Rat Behavior Reference

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.

Pet rats are more complicated than the stereotypes around them. Anne Hanson set out to document what her own rats actually did, and a small hobby project grew into a surprisingly serious online reference to behavior, biology, sounds, and history.

Explore Rat Behavior and Biology.

The site's updates log gives a precise start date: March 16, 2003. Hanson says the original pages included a photo-illustrated behavioral repertoire, rat vocalizations with sound files and spectrograms, and the story of an evening when three rats named Widget, Cricket and Snip explored outside their cage.

There was even a Pet Brick FAQ, a joking response to conversations on a rat-owners' mailing list. That mixture—serious observation and affectionate in-jokes—captures the personality of a web resource created by someone involved in a specific online community.

A personal collection with academic habits

Hanson's About page states that she earned a doctorate in animal behavior at the University of California, Davis. She gives guidance on citing individual articles, naming herself as author and listing update dates, and links her published writing about rats.

The Norway rat history chapter is one example of its range. It distinguishes Norway rats from black rats, discusses the animals' spread through human trade routes, and explains how domestication and captive breeding contributed to familiar laboratory and pet varieties. The chapter contains source citations rather than treating every anecdote as established fact.

Other navigation categories deal with sensory abilities, health, wild rats, species and strains, and the distinctions between rats and mice. Hanson also maintains personal photo stories for successive groups of animals, including Paint and Smudge.

Some of its older welfare and medical material may have been superseded by later research. An archive with 2003-era pages should not be used as a substitute for current veterinary advice.

The original main page was intermittently inaccessible during this review, but the indexed updates, biography and history chapters provided enough substantial primary material to establish its character. Its value is not a claim of scientific authority over every topic; it is the way one researcher and pet owner created a detailed bridge between personal experience and animal-behavior literature.

Read Hanson's background and the illustrated history of the Norway rat.

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.