Wistar rat 2572124 215959699 2008-05-30T13:18:58Z SmackBot 433328 Date the maintenance tags or general fixes {{citations}} '''Wistar rats''' are an outbred {{Fact|date=May 2008}} [[Strain (biology)|strain]] of [[albino]] [[rat]]s belonging to the species ''[[Rattus norvegicus]]''. This strain was developed at the [[Wistar Institute]] for use in biological and medical research, and is notably the first rat strain developed to serve as a [[model organism]] at a time when laboratories primarily used ''[[Mus musculus]]'', or the common House mouse. Most laboratory rat strains are descended from a colony of rats established at the Wistar Institute in [[1906]] by American [[physiology|physiologist]] Henry Donaldson, scientific administrator Milton J. Greenman, and [[genetics|genetic researcher]]/[[embryologist]] [[Helen Dean King]]. The Wistar rat is currently one of the most popular rat strains used for laboratory research. It is characterized by its wide head, long ears, and having a tail length that is always less than its body length. The [[Sprague Dawley rat]] and [[Long-Evans rat]] strains were developed from Wistar rats. ==External links== *[http://www.amphilsoc.org/library/mendel/1998.htm Bonnie Tochar Clause, ''The Wistar Institute Archives: Rats (Not Mice) and History'', Mendel Newsletter, Feb. 1998] [[Category:Model organisms]] [[Category:Animals bred for albinism on a large scale]] {{rodent-stub}}