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Ah, mouse!
Researchers believe they have cracked its origin chicagoThe so-called “rat hole”, one of the Windy City’s strangest local landmarks.
Wait now. The rat hole was not what you think. This wasn’t some back-alley bar that served as a speakeasy for the city’s notorious gangster clients, or some junk-filled mansion. It was actually a full-body impression of an unfortunate creature that had gotten stuck in wet sidewalk cement in the Roscoe Village area of the city about 20 or 30 years ago. The print resembles the print of a stretched hawk mouse, with small claws, arms and legs, and even the outline of a tail.
The rat hole went viral early last year when comedian Winslow Dumaine posted a photo of it on X. The post attracted curious tourists to the site all the time, some leaving coins and other strange objects around the post as a tribute.
However, constant traffic led to complaints from neighbors and in April 2024 someone filled it with a plaster-like substance. City workers eventually removed that slab from the sidewalk and took it to the City Hall-County Building. A plaque honoring the rat hole remains at the actual site.
researchers are from here University of TennesseeNew York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine and University of Calgary A paper published Wednesday in the journal Biology Letters concluded that the rat’s burrow was likely created not by the titular rodent but by a squirrel or muskrat.
The researchers studied online photos of rat burrows and compared the imprint’s measurements to museum specimens of animals commonly found in the Chicago area. The presence of arms, legs, and tail ruled out birds, snakes, frogs, and turtles, reducing the chances of a mammal. The study said the claw outline further reduced the area for rats, mice, squirrels, chipmunks and muskrats.
The creature’s long forelimbs, third digits, and hind claws were too large for a rat, but fell within the measurement range for the eastern gray squirrel, fox squirrel, and muskrat. The most likely suspect is the eastern gray squirrel, given how abundant this creature is in the Chicago area, the study said, while other researchers have theorized that a squirrel made the mark, pointing out that the cement is typically wet during the day and the rats are there at night; The creature left no trace, suggesting that the squirrel made a mistake in jumping or slipped from the branch and fell into the wet cement.
The researchers acknowledged that the imprint did not have a bushy tail. But he noted that hair often lacked the stiffness to make a deep, well-defined impression and that it would have been surprising to find such an impression.
“We therefore propose that the specimen be named ‘Windy City Sidewalk Squirrel’ – a name that is more appropriate for its likely origin and more aligned with the evidence at hand,” they wrote.