The rat is undoubtedly one of the most studied animals in the world. Millions of pages of scientific literature have been devoted to it, and it remains a widely used species in biomedical research today. Yet, beyond the numbers, protocols, and publications, who really knows the rat?
In *ScéléRats! *, science communicator, author, and lecturer Sébastien Moro takes on a bold challenge: to make hundreds of scientific studies on this fascinating animal accessible to a wider audience, while maintaining their scientific rigor and adding a healthy dose of humor. As the pages unfold, rats reveal often unexpected abilities: complex social lives, mutual aid, empathy, learning, metacognition… all discoveries that invite us to take a fresh look at this much-maligned animal.
For Transcience, this book holds special significance.
By presenting rats in a light other than as mere “experimental models,” it reminds us that they are also individuals endowed with remarkable cognitive, emotional, and social abilities. This understanding should lead the scientific community to view them as beings with intrinsic value, rather than simply as tools for research.
*ScéléRats! * is a comic book for everyone—a thrilling and exhilarating read!
Let’s hear from Sébastien Moro, who shares his perspective as an author:
“Scélérats! is a book born of a rather unusual idea: What is the animal most hated by humans, and for which there is enough scientific data to write a book? Rats came out on top, narrowly edging out spiders and mosquitoes.
So, armed with my Josselin competition billiards set and its digital pencils, I threw myself headlong into this project, which cost us both a few years of life expectancy.
Me, because of school, and Josselin, because of me.
This is a popular science comic book based on an initial bibliography of more than 1,200 primary studies and a few reviews and meta-analyses (which are surprisingly rare for an animal so central to laboratory research).
The final bibliography includes 641 studies, which can be accessed at www.cervelledoiseau.fr or via the QR code printed at the end of the book.
Each one was carefully read, analyzed, reread, reanalyzed, summarized, turned into jokes, and some were removed because there were too many—in short, two years of work for 264 pages packed with science!
The goal was clearly to produce the most comprehensive overview possible of an animal we think we know—when in fact… well, no. Not at all, really.
I wanted to show “who rats really are,” far from the dismal image they’ve earned.
Through these hundreds of hours of reading, I discovered one of the most tightly knit societies in the animal world. I encountered individuals with strong personalities who help one another whenever they can and do favors for each other by following astonishing rules of reciprocity. I witnessed the construction of veritable underground cities of almost unbelievable complexity. There, I encountered animals of remarkable intelligence, endowed with a mental world of unsuspected richness.
And finally, I found animals in it with intense emotions—animals that feel fear and empathy, animals that have fun and laugh. While this book is accessible to the general public, it is primarily aimed at the academic community and lovers of science and animals. The popular science explanation is in-depth and, at times, demanding. The protocols are systematically dissected, and their limitations and nuances are highlighted.
That is, in fact, why my works are widely circulated in research units.
In this case, *Scélérats!* is in the running for the “Le Goût des Sciences” award from the Ministry of Higher Education and Research.
One thing that struck me as I read more and talked with scientists is just how fragmented our understanding of rats is, depending on the field of research one comes from.
That is why *Scélérats!* covers a broad spectrum: from biological aspects to behavioral observations, without shying away from the most technical topics in cognitive science. For example, the chapter on “metacognition” brings together all the research on this topic as of the book’s publication date, the sections on episodic memory and the assessment of emotions (including the full history of judgment bias protocols) summarize the current state of knowledge on these topics, and so on.
Vocal communication also plays an important role, alongside early research on rats as pets, as well as a final chapter on the ethical issues raised by all of this.
“I hope this book will find its place in university libraries and, above all, that it will, in its own small way, help foster discussions about how we treat these extraordinary animals.”
