You dirty gerbil!

Like Republicans, RATS have been getting a bad rap for CENTURIES!

New scientific studies appear to show that it was likely GERBILS who caused the Bubonic plague.

I’m not sure if “You dirty, yellow-bellied gerbil” has quite the same ring to it.

From the Orange County Register: Poor rats. They get a bad rap, for rooting through the garbage, lurking in alleyways and, centuries ago, for carrying the bubonic plague, which killed scores of people.

But rats may not have been to blame for the plague in Europe after all, according to a new scientific theory.

The plague, which struck Europe repeatedly starting with the Black Death of 1347 to 1353, may instead have come from gerbils in Asia. Maritime trade may have inadvertently imported the disease repeatedly from great gerbils and other small mammals in Asia, according to an article this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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