Spirit Guide of the day is Rat! Despite your fears, you have plenty of resources available to you and your projects will pay off soon. This is a time where caution and intuition are important. What for what the future holds so you can be prepared. This may be a good time to take inventory of your possessions and rid yourself of anything not necessary. The rat guide is known for success, shrewdness, survival, and restlessness. In Chinese astrology, the rat is assigned to the first year. These totems are very intelligent and goal-oriented. Learning the behavior or type of rat coming to you as a sign will help to aid you in what it means. This may be a sign to increase your work-load to complete goals or to back off and try to relax more. In Asian cultures, rats are a sign of good luck in business. Rats are seen as the vehicle of the Lord Ganesh in Indian tradition and they are worshiped at the Karni Devi Temple where priests and pilgrims feed them grain and milk. People who connect with Rat adapt very well and are able to live on whatever resources are available to them. These individuals are shy, sometimes nervous, and can get restless when they don't have much to do. They will use their clever and cunning personalities to become successful and enjoy the feeling of success. At times, they will hoard objects in order to help feel more secure. These souls can recognize the beautiful in life, while understanding what is essential.

Rats, Rattus Genus, are omnivorous rodents that can live up to 3 years of age. Rats originated from Asia and Australia, but have spread all over the world. These adaptable creatures can live in a wide variety of habitats as long as they have enough water and food. There are more than 60 species of rat and they come in a variety of sizes. They are usually around 5 inches long, being larger with longer, thinner bodies, and long legs in comparison to other rodents such as mice. Rats have extremely strong teeth able to chew through cinder block, wire, lead, glass, and more. They are able to squeeze through any hole as small as a quarter. With an amazing sense of smell and memory, rats can even recognize which humans feed them or remember where traps may have been left. The largest species is the Bosavi woolly rat from the rain forests of Papua New Guinea. This species was discovered in 2009 and still does not have a scientific name. The Bosavi woolly rat is approximately 32 inches from tail to nose and weighs as much as 3 pounds. The smallest rat would be the Osgood's Vietnamese rat which is only between 5 and 7 inches long. The most common rats are the brown rat, also called the Norway rat, and the house rat which traveled to every country over the past few centuries on boats. House rats normally prefer warmer climates while brown rats prefer temperate climates. However, both will typically live anywhere humans live. Some rats will prefer more specific places such as the rice field rat found in Southeast Asia and the Australian swamp rat found in Eastern Australia. There are even species that prefer to live in trees. Rats are nocturnal animals, although the brown rat is often awake during parts of the day and night. These creatures are highly sociable and require the companionship of other rats. They will live in social groups called packs. Male rats are known as bucks, females as does, and their young are called pups or kittens. A group of rats are also called a mischief. When a male and female leave a group, they will start a new pack by nesting in an area that does not have one already. Packs may have several dominant males or females, while brown rats are usually led by the largest male in the pack. When bearing young, rats will build nests with any material they have foraged from grass and branches to paper and cloth. They will build these nests in areas such as rotting trees or buildings. Female rats can mate up to 500 times in a six-hour period and Brown rats can have up to 2,000 offspring in a single year. They have have an amazing 22 young at once, although they will normally only have 8 or 9 pups at a time. Tropical rats will have a smaller litter of around 6 at a time. Pups will weigh less than an ounce at birth and are able to reproduce by the time they reach 3 months old. The diet of a rat depends highly on what they can find. They prefer to eat meat when they can get it, but will scavenge through anything they can find. Other foods they will ingest include grain, insects, snails, mussels, small birds or mammals, and even reptiles. Some rats, such as the Hoffman's rat and the Sulawesi white-tailed rat, will prefer vegetarian foods such as seeds and fruits.