Advance tickets: $13.50
  
Profs and Pints Richmond presents: “Your Neighbor the Rat,” a look at members of the genus rattus and efforts to understand their ways locally and in cities worldwide, with Jonathan Richardson, associate professor of biology at the University of Richmond and researcher of urban rat populations.

Most of us know rats mainly from the unwelcome glimpses we catch of them scurrying through backyards or alleyways. But Jonathan Richardson studies them closely, trapping them in the “wild” in cities around the world and by using several molecular, genetics, and computational techniques to uncover their biology. He leads global studies of wild urban rat biology involving researchers in Richmond, Washington D.C, New York, New Orleans, Seattle, Helsinki, Tokyo, and Salvador in Brazil.

Learn how researchers go about studying this cryptic, secretive animal, as well as what we know about rats in Richmond and other cities, when Dr. Richardson comes to Triple Crossing-Fulton to discuss his fascinating work.

He'll talk about whether there’s any basis for the common perception that rats really are getting worse in cities, and how climate change, urbanization, and population growth factor into the equation.

You’ll learn why rats are so successful, and why they are such a worthy adversary and so hard to control. You’ll also learn what we can do to manage and control rats better and be more successful in decreasing their presence.

This Profs and Pints talk probably won’t leave you fond of rats—Dr. Richardson will talk about how they transmit many zoonotic diseases, degrade our mental health, and cause billions of dollars of damage every year. But you might at least come away somewhat fascinated by them, and with a grudging respect for their resilience as they persist in great numbers despite the hundreds of millions spent to control them. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)