# What Do Rats Eat?

> What rats eat: Omnivore (highly opportunistic), foraging style, and seasonal shifts in Cities, sewers, farms, riverbanks worldwide.

- **Species:** Rat (*Rattus norvegicus*)
- **Conservation status:** Least Concern
- **Diet:** Omnivore (highly opportunistic)
- **Habitat:** Cities, sewers, farms, riverbanks worldwide
- **Lifespan:** 1–2 years in the wild
- **Top speed:** 13 km/h (8 mph)
- **Canonical HTML:** https://globalanimalguide.org/animals/rat/what-do-rat-eat/
- **Parent profile:** https://globalanimalguide.org/animals/rat/
- **Last reviewed:** 2026-07-16

## Quick answer

The brown rat, also called the Norway rat, is a large, highly intelligent rodent that lives alongside people across most of the world. It has coarse brown-grey fur, a blunt snout, and a long scaly tail, and it thrives in sewers, cities, farms, and waterways. Brown rats weigh up to about 500 g, are strong swimmers and climbers, and usually live one to two years in the wild.

## Who should skip this page

Skip this if you need a captive feeding plan from a veterinarian. This page is wild diet, not a pet-care sheet.

## Intelligence and behaviour

Brown rats are among the most intelligent rodents, capable of learning routes, solving simple puzzles, and even showing signs of empathy in laboratory studies. They are highly social, living in colonies with a clear hierarchy, and they are famously neophobic — wary of new objects and foods in their environment, which makes them difficult to trap or poison. They are also excellent swimmers and can climb, gnaw through tough materials, and squeeze through surprisingly small gaps.

## Help protect the Rat

Even familiar animals lose ground as wild habitat keeps shrinking worldwide.

[Donate to wildlife protection](https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/donate/)

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Source: Global Animal Guide (https://globalanimalguide.org/animals/rat/what-do-rat-eat/). Licensed CC BY-NC 4.0 — free for non-commercial reuse with attribution.