The Pizza Rat Taste Test: Which New York Slice Do Big City Vermin Prefer?

Encounters with New York City's healthy rat population definitely tops New Yorker's "worst fear" lists. But what if these rodents were transformed from subway nuisance and apartment nightmares to pizza connoisseurs? In honor of one of 2015's most popular memes, pizza rat, which spawned merchandise and sexy Halloween costumes, New York Magazine set up a pizza rat taste test.

New York Magazine set down some of the most famous pizza pies in New York in front of curious, common New York City rats in a public park and determined which of the pizzas was preferred by the rodents.

Here, in ascending order, is the ranking of pizza rat preferences by total slices gnawed by Rizzo and his friends:[slideshow:

Grimaldi's pie with Italian sausage: zero slices eaten.

Williamsburg Pizza margherita: two total slices eaten.

Motorino prosciutto di Parma: 3.8 slices eaten. "They couldn't get enough," a reporter observed.

Lombardi's original pie with pancetta: eight slices eaten. The entire pie was consumed by the discerning diners.

The pizza rat experiment was derided by many readers who suggested that wasting four pies when they could have given the food to homeless people was thoughtless.