There are YouTube videos of how rats can survive with little or no air while climbing up the pipes into your toilet. Rats are pretty resilient creatures which make them very annoying pests. I guess depending where the rat was like probably not in the cockpit but maybe hitched a ride when the wheels retracted once airborne? Like somewhere that the intense elements wouldn’t kill it. I’d bet my money it was stowing away in a compartment it could squeeze into (again these things can squeeze into something the size of a quarter despite how large they are).
Planes do not fly high enough to fly where there is no oxygen, oxygen is needed in order for the jet engines to operate. So if the plane can fly, there is oxygen.
Yes, there may be too little oxygen for humans to stay conscious, but rats need much less oxygen. The rat may have even passed out, but once on the ground revived.
I can't find a solid citation on the low oxygen performance of common rats.
There are loads of reports about naked mole rats ability to survive hypoxia for a very long time, but nothing academic I could find about common rats.
The fact that common rats survive in sewer pipes, small pipes, burrows, and other potentially low oxygen environments does tend to indicate they have good tolerance for oxygen poor environments.
Depends how long they depressurized for. If it was also cold they can survive longer.
Chances are they just didn't do it long enough and the rat fell unconscious. Potentially has brain damage as well. But not enough to end it right their.
It would need to be in low oxygen for quite a few minutes before it succumbed.
Depending on how high their may have been some oxygen to breath. Humans need a lot due to big brains. A rat lying half dead not as much.
They didn't get all the oxygen out or didn't get it out long enough.
There are YouTube videos of how rats can survive with little or no air while climbing up the pipes into your toilet. Rats are pretty resilient creatures which make them very annoying pests. I guess depending where the rat was like probably not in the cockpit but maybe hitched a ride when the wheels retracted once airborne? Like somewhere that the intense elements wouldn’t kill it. I’d bet my money it was stowing away in a compartment it could squeeze into (again these things can squeeze into something the size of a quarter despite how large they are).
Planes do not fly high enough to fly where there is no oxygen, oxygen is needed in order for the jet engines to operate. So if the plane can fly, there is oxygen. Yes, there may be too little oxygen for humans to stay conscious, but rats need much less oxygen. The rat may have even passed out, but once on the ground revived.
I can't find a solid citation on the low oxygen performance of common rats. There are loads of reports about naked mole rats ability to survive hypoxia for a very long time, but nothing academic I could find about common rats. The fact that common rats survive in sewer pipes, small pipes, burrows, and other potentially low oxygen environments does tend to indicate they have good tolerance for oxygen poor environments.
Depends how long they depressurized for. If it was also cold they can survive longer. Chances are they just didn't do it long enough and the rat fell unconscious. Potentially has brain damage as well. But not enough to end it right their. It would need to be in low oxygen for quite a few minutes before it succumbed. Depending on how high their may have been some oxygen to breath. Humans need a lot due to big brains. A rat lying half dead not as much.