Animal of the week: bald rat commands others with a strong smell

There is a lot of talk about leadership. There is transformational leadership, leadership by values, leadership from the front, leadership by fear. What about leadership by smell?

This less familiar aspect of leadership is now being discussed in the prestigious scientific journal Nature, using our furry friend the bald rat as an example.

In a bald rat community, the queen is the absolute boss, the boss lady. She maintains discipline by secreting an authoritative scent. Fighting and excessive sex in the community immediately stop when the nest gets a whiff of the queen’s aroma.

If these are problems in your work community, you could perhaps try spraying isopropyl myristate into the air duct. According to research, this compound is the active ingredient in the bald rat queen’s authority.

Bald rats, which live in Africa, are the only mammals whose society works like that of ants. They have a queen, workers, and soldiers in the nest, and only the queen is allowed to reproduce. Everyone dances to the queen’s tune, and when the queen dies, a ruthless game of thrones begins to choose a new leader.

It has been known that the queen rules with her scent. The compound she secretes calms the hive and prevents others from reproducing.

Now it has been clarified that the scent is isopropyl myristate. It is also a commonly used cosmetic ingredient that humans cannot smell, but for bald rats it is a powerful seduction.

German and South African researchers removed the queen from a bald rat nest and treated the nest daily with isopropyl myristate. The colony lived in perfect harmony for months.

When the substance was stopped, joy broke out. The bald rats began to roar and mate. Soon one of the females had become the new queen.

Blood tests revealed that the substance inhibits the production of the luteinizing hormone in bald rats. This curbs their reproductive drive.

When artificial intelligence is said to soon do mental work, humans should be more like bald rats. That way we would have good cheap labor.

Bald rats don’t feel much pain, can withstand corrosive substances, thrive in miserable conditions, and don’t get cancer.