Rat 🐀

The rat emoji shows a full-bodied rodent, similar to the mouse but noticeably larger and more substantial, with a longer, thicker tail and a more prominent snout. The coloring is typically gray, brown, or black, and the overall design reads as more realistic and less cartoon-ish than its smaller cousin. Some designs even emphasize the rat's whiskers and alert expression, giving it a more intelligent, observant appearance.

People use the rat emoji to reference actual rats—in pest control contexts, laboratory or educational discussions, or simply because they spotted one. Unlike the cute mouse, the rat often carries negative connotations in Western culture ("rat" is slang for an informant or untrustworthy person), so it appears in both literal animal conversations and figurative put-downs. It's also used playfully in gaming contexts, memes, and when describing someone's sketchy behavior ("that's so rat").

The rat has suffered from poor cultural branding for centuries, but recent years have seen a rehabilitation thanks to pet rats and their surprising intelligence, friendliness, and cleanliness. Still, the emoji tends to feel slightly less innocent than the mouse. In Chinese zodiac culture, the rat is actually a symbol of intelligence and quick thinking, lending the emoji additional layers of meaning.

Approved as part of Unicode Emoji 1.0 in 2015, the rat arrived alongside the mouse, giving the emoji set both rodent options and acknowledging that rats and mice, while related, occupy very different cultural and practical spaces in human conversation.