Image description: Urban Rodentologist and rat expert Dr. Robert Corrigan squats down on a city sidewalk, using a flashlight to look into a ventilation grate. He is wearing blue jeans, a plaid shirt, a black fleece pullover, and a white construction helmet.

Let’s kick off Spooktober with… RATS: They love pizza. They invade taquerias at midnight. They scurry. They cuddle. They outsmart. They inspire movies that inspire musicals. Proving that not just woodsy megafauna can be charismatic, rats have lives we would never suspect. Globally-lauded Urban Rodentologist Dr. Robert Corrigan, or Bobby if you like, has been studying these animals in their big-city ecosystem for decades and he is a wonder-filled joy. Learn about rats’ origin story, the difference between a rat and a mouse, where they live, their preferred “food dialects,” and how to (hopefully humanely) keep one out of your house -- or car? Might as well start to love and respect them, because we’re not-too-distantly related and one day… they may be steering the ship.

Listen via Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Podbay, Podcast Addict, or wherever you get podcasts.

Follow Dr. Corrigan on X

A donation went to the Yash Gandhi Foundation

Links to things we discussed:

Dr. Robert Corrigan on LinkedIn

NYC rat control advice

Bobby holding a taxidermied sewer rat

New Yorkers: here’s a live rat map for you

The Ratatouille Musical IS REAL

Listen to some Ratatouille, if you like

The original Pizza Rat video

Dr. Austin Frischman -- Urban Entomologist and cockroach expert