Image ID 400058 Photographic Services & Permissions

Norway Rat (Rattus norvegicus)
Hand-colored lithograph after John James Audubon
From: J. J. Audubon and John Bachman, The Quadrupeds of North America. Vol. 2 of 3 (New York, 1849–54)
NYPL, George Arents Collection of Books in Parts

Although Audubon’s illustration shows Norway Rats in a more attractive setting than the familiar urban sewers, streets, or subway tracks, the text remains accurate more than 150 years later: "The Norway rat is called the brown rat, sewer rat, wharf rat – and much worse! It shares the distinction, with its smaller and weaker relative the black rat, of being the most feared and hated mammal in the world. As prolific as it is aggressive, the Norway rat often outnumbers human residents, and has spread everywhere except in the very coldest regions. It carries some of the most virulent diseases of man and animals, including plague and typhus, which have killed more people than all the wars in history. Voracious, the rat devours or destroys property worth possibly one-half billion dollars every year in the United States alone."