i smell a rat?

for some reason, i was thinking about all the cliches that compare us to animals and wondered why that is...since i'm sure we were doing these things before we ever noticed animals doing them. here are some of what i'm talking about:

-sly as a fox
-i'm not going to be your guinea pig
-i smell a rat
-sweating like a pig
-fat as a cow
-blind as a bat

you get my gist. i mean i don't know when it was that men found out bats were blind, but i can assume it was not before there were blind people around. shouldn't we say "that cow is as fat as henry". and, seriously, were pigs the first to sweat? i doubt that.

the reason rats smell is that they pee on everything as sort of a personal resume for other rats. so when we use the term "i smell a rat", we are saying we suspect someone of covering something up, when rats actually use their scent to share information about themselves, such as their sex, species, age, social status, reproductive status, and individual.

anyway, that was just something i was thinking about this morning. i think of unusual things while i'm watching dora the explorer.