  We prove the existence of rational maps having smooth degenerate Herman
rings. This answers a question of Eremenko affirmatively. The proof is based on
the construction of smooth Siegel disks by Avila, Buff and Ch\'{e}ritat as well
as the classical Siegel-to-Herman quasiconformal surgery. A crucial ingredient
in the proof is the surgery's continuity, which relies on the control of the
loss of the area of quadratic filled-in Julia sets by Buff and Ch\'{e}ritat.
  As a by-product, we prove the existence of rational maps having a nowhere
dense Julia set of positive area for which these maps have no irrationally
indifferent periodic points, no Herman rings, and are not renormalizable.
