KANGAROO RATS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 October 1938, Page 9

KANGAROO RATS

EXPERIMENTS IN ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. Experiments in animal psychology now being carried out under the auspices of the Paris Museum of Natural History have resulted in the production of a race of two-legged white rats. The front paws after only a few generations have become atrophied and no longer serve for locomotion, but only for seizing food, while the hind members are correspondingly overdeveloped. The animals look somewhat like miniature kangaroos, and hop about in much the same way. This result was, achieved by placing the feeding troughs about six inches above the floor of the cages, the rats being obliged to sand on their hind legs to reach them. The troughs run the whole length of the cage, and thus the animals become accustomed, as the food in one part of the trough is exhausted to run along on their hind legs until they find a supply. The habits thus acquired, it is shown by the experiment, are transmitted hereditarily, along with the altered physique. Young rats, even before they are weaned, hop about on two legs, making little use of the forepaws. Professor P. Hatehet-Souplet, under whose supervision the experiments are being conducted, is one of the pioneers of animal psychology. Thirty-five years ago, some time before the Russian savant Pavloff, he began experiments with various kinds of domestic animals, proving that inculcated habits could be transmitted to the offspring. Dogs that had been taught difficult tricks had young that performed the same tricks without being taught. A cat was taught to dive for fish, and its descendants took naturally to the water and evendeveloped slightly webbed feet. Monkeys that had been trained to catch rats produced offspring that took to rat hunting naturally. Subsequently Pavloff trained rats to come for their food when a small silver bell was rung. Their young (without, of course, being given an opportunity to learn the habit by imitation of the parents) instinctively responded to the call of the same bell. They paid no attention to bells of a different pitch and even were frightened away by them. These experiments are being closely watched by scientists, some of whom have gone so far as to advance the view that animals can be bred to perform useful work instinctively, as bees produce honey. Glimpses are given of a fantastic future in which monkeys or dogs may perform complicated agricultural or industrial operations without being trained to do so.