Rat Populations Are Exploding as Cities Get Hotter

Rats are having the time of their lives right now. As the world burns, thanks to climate change, rats in major cities are thriving. They’re loving that we are destroying our climate, and it makes sense, considering they’re going to inherit it all when we kill ourselves off.

According to a study published in Science Advances, the warmer temperatures get, the more rats start fucking; the more they fuck, the more babies they produce. Female rats reach sexual maturity faster and produce larger litters when it’s warmer, which contributes to an increase in rat numbers, especially in hot cities.

As you’re frying an egg on the asphalt during a New York City summer, deep below the surface, rats are experiencing a wild, sexual bacchanalia producing even more rats.

The researchers pored over public complaints and inspection records from 16 cities between 2007 and 2024. They found that 11 cities saw a massive increase in rat populations, with Washington D.C. ahead of the pack with an astonishing 390 percent explosion. Other major cities like New York, San Francisco, and Toronto weren’t that far behind.

Rats are evolutionarily well-suited to exist in cities, what with all the dumpsters and human waste lying around, ripe for the picking. Plus, when temperatures aren’t freezing, rats can stay active for longer stretches, giving them time to find more food in dumpsters that will give them the energy to have tons of sex that will produce more babies who will then continue the cycle in perpetuity.

Researchers also found that rat populations were higher in cities that didn’t have as many green spaces, though they aren’t totally sure why that’s the case. They suggested all cities do a better job of rat-proofing, which sounds like a Band-Aid to the larger core issue of climate change itself.