A rat king is a collection of rats or mice whose tails are intertwined and bound together in some way. This could be a result of an entangling material like hair, a sticky substance such as sap or gum, or the tails being tied together.
A similar phenomenon with squirrels has been observed, which has had modern documented examples.
The original German term, Rattenkönig, was calqued into English as rat king, and into French as roi des rats. The term was not originally used in reference to actual rats, but for persons who lived off others. Conrad Gesner in Historia animalium (1551–58) stated: "Some would have it that the rat waxes mighty in its old age and is fed by its young: this is called the rat king." Martin Luther stated: "finally, there is the Pope, the king of rats right at the top." Later, the term referred to a king sitting on a throne of knotted tails. [1]
An alternative theory states that the name in French was rouet de rats (or a spinning wheel of rats, the knotted tails being wheel spokes), with the term transforming over time into roi des rats, [1] because formerly French oi was pronounced [we] or similar; nowadays it is pronounced [wa] .
The earliest report of rat kings comes from 1564. [1] Most extant examples are formed from black rats (Rattus rattus). [2]
Specimens of purported rat kings are kept in some museums. The museum Mauritianum in Altenburg, Thuringia, shows the largest well-known mummified "rat king", which was found in 1828 in a miller's fireplace at Buchheim. It consists of 32 rats. [3] Alcohol-preserved rat kings are shown in museums in Hamburg, Göttingen, Hamelin, Stuttgart, Strasbourg, Tartu and Nantes.
A rat king found in 1930 in New Zealand, displayed in the Otago Museum in Dunedin, was composed of immature black rats whose tails were entangled by horse hair. [4]
A rat king discovered in 1963 by a farmer at Rucphen, Netherlands, as published by cryptozoologist M. Schneider, consists of seven rats. All of them were killed by the time they were examined. [5] X-ray images show formations of calluses at the fractures of their tails, which suggests that the animals survived for an extended period of time with their tails tangled. [6]
Sightings of the phenomenon in modern times, especially where the specimens are alive, are very rare. One 2005 sighting comes from an Estonian farmer in Saru, of the Võrumaa region; [7] many of the rats in the specimen, now part of the collection at the University of Tartu Museum of Zoology in Estonia, were alive. In 2021, a living "rat king" of five mice was caught on video (and untangled to save the mice) near Stavropol, Russia. [8] [9] [10] [11]
On 20 October 2021, a live rat king of 13 rats was found in Põlvamaa, Estonia. The rat king was taken to Tartu University and euthanized due to the rats having no way of freeing themselves. Before that, scientists were able to film the rat king alive. The rat king will be added to the Tartu University Museum of Zoology collection. [12] [13]
Instances of squirrel kings have been reported. They were found alive in some cases, and veterinarians have had to separate them as the squirrels could potentially starve or be eaten by a predator. [14] A squirrel king of six squirrels stuck together with pine sap was found in Regina, Saskatchewan, in June 2013. [15] In 2018, five juvenile grey squirrels were found in Wisconsin, US. Some surrounding nest material, grass, and plastic got further entangled with them. [16] The knot caused some tissue damage to their tails. [17]
Rat kings have been reported from Germany, Belgium (particularly in vicinity of the border with the Netherlands), Estonia, Indonesia (Java), and New Zealand, with the majority of cases reported from the European countries. The existence of this phenomenon is debated due to the limited evidence of it occurring naturally, although the discovery of a live instance in Estonia in 2021 is considered to be proof that it is a natural, albeit extremely rare, phenomenon. [12] Another concern is the possibility that some of the centuries-old preserved museum specimens could be fabricated, such hoaxes being common in earlier eras. [14] [18] 17th–18th-century naturalists proposed many hypotheses to explain this phenomenon. Most were dubious, ranging from the rats getting stuck together during birth and glued later, to healthy rats deliberately knotting themselves to weaker rats to make a nest. A possible explanation is that the long flexible tail of the black rat could be exposed to sticky or frozen substances such as sebum (a secretion from the skin itself), sap, food, or excretory products. This mixture acts as a bonding agent and may solidify as rats sleep especially when the animals live in proximity during winter. After realizing that they were bound, they would struggle, tightening the knot. This explanation is plausible given that most cases have been found during winter and in confined spaces. [5] Emma Burns, curator of natural science at the Otago Museum, said regarding her museum's specimen, "Ship rats [black rats], according to some theories, are climbing rats, so their tails have a grasping reflex. In the nest, they form a hold." [2]
Some zoologists remain skeptical, saying that, while theoretically possible, the rats would not be able to survive in such a condition for a long time, [2] [5] [18] particularly if the temperatures rose or if they bit their own or another's tail to try to free themselves. Since black rats cluster together during winters for warmth, it could be possible for a rat king to be naturally-occurring. [2] Any fabrications would most likely have been created using dead rats, given how difficult the process would be if the rats were alive. However, experts support the idea of isolated freak accidents due to the existence of occasional well-observed cases involving squirrels—also members of the rodent family. [5] A 2007 study published in Proceedings of the Estonian Academy of Science, Biology, and Ecology, following the finding of the University of Tartu specimen, concluded that the phenomenon is possible but rare. [14]
 |
Rat kings appear in novels such as It by Stephen King, Accordion Crimes by Annie Proulx, The Tale of One Bad Rat by Bryan Talbot, Ratking by Michael Dibdin, Rotters by Daniel Kraus, Peeps by Scott Westerfeld, The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray by Chris Wooding, Rats and Gargoyles by Mary Gentle, Luther: The Calling by Neil Cross, The War for the Lot by Sterling E. Lanier, Cold Storage by David Koepp, where it plays a prominent role, and The Rats by James Herbert. The Lorrie Moore short story Wings features a couple who discover a rat king in their attic. In Alan Moore and Ian Gibson's comic book series The Ballad of Halo Jones , the Rat King was a weapon of war, a super-intelligent collective able to coordinate attacks by regular rats on a global scale, decimating an entire planet.
In The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett, Keith skeptically notes that the filth associated with supposedly tying the young rats together at a young age is not found in a rat's nest, and suspects that a rat king is created as a sort of project by a rat catcher himself. One rat king, called Spider due to having eight component rats, supports this by his grudge against humanity for his traumatic creation. In an author's note at the end of the novel, Pratchett ventures the theory that "down the ages, some cruel and inventive people have had altogether too much time on their hands".
E. T. A. Hoffmann's The Nutcracker and the Mouse King features a character called the Mouse King (Mausekönig), with seven heads. The character is sometimes depicted as multi-headed in productions of the Tchaikovsky ballet The Nutcracker , based on the novella. The film The Nutcracker and the Four Realms , based on the short story, similarly features a "Mouse King", a rat-king like creature formed from a teeming mass of small mice.
The phenomenon's name appeared as the title of a Boston Manor song released in 2020. When asked about it, vocalist Henry Cox explained that he used the rat king as a metaphor for contemporary political and social events. [19]
A creature known as the Rat King is featured in the 2020 action-adventure video game The Last of Us Part II . It is a conjoinment of multiple fungus-infected humans, which protagonist Abby encounters in the underground levels of a hospital. [20] Three actors were tied together to perform motion capture for the creature. [20] [21] Co-director Kurt Margenau described the idea behind the Rat King as the team's take on "what happens to them [the infected] when they sit around for a really long time." [20]
The rat king appears in several episodes of the cartoon "Hilda". The Rat King is an amalgamation of rats living in the sewers below the city. He knows people's secrets and is willing to trade knowledge with Hilda on several occasions.
A three-head rat sovereign appears as the primary antagonist in Mac Barnett's, graphic novel, The First Cat in Space Ate Pizza. [22]
The antagonist of The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett is a rat king named Spider with mental control over other rats. The characters discuss the possible origins of rat kings, dismissing the theories as to how they might occur naturally. It is eventually revealed that members of the Ratcatchers' Guild create rat kings as a masterpiece to demonstrate their skill in handling live rats. [23]
A rat king appears in Hoard by Luna Carmoon. A mass of rats is found among hoarded ephemera in Maria's mother's home.
Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents. Species of rats are found throughout the order Rodentia, but stereotypical rats are found in the genus Rattus. Other rat genera include Neotoma, Bandicota and Dipodomys.
The black rat, also known as the roof rat, ship rat, or house rat, is a common long-tailed rodent of the stereotypical rat genus Rattus, in the subfamily Murinae. It likely originated in the Indian subcontinent, but is now found worldwide.
The brown rat, also known as the common rat, street rat, sewer rat, wharf rat, Hanover rat, Norway rat and Norwegian rat, is a widespread species of common rat. One of the largest muroids, it is a brown or grey rodent with a body length of up to 28 cm (11 in) long, and a tail slightly shorter than that. It weighs between 140 and 500 g. Thought to have originated in northern China and neighbouring areas, this rodent has now spread to all continents except Antarctica, and is the dominant rat in Europe and much of North America. With rare exceptions, the brown rat lives wherever humans live, particularly in urban areas.
The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents is a children's fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, published by Doubleday in 2001. It is the twenty-eighth novel in the Discworld series and the first written for children. The story is a new take on the German fairy tale about the Pied Piper of Hamelin and a parody of the folk tale genre.
The Muridae, or murids, are either the largest or second-largest family of rodents and of mammals, containing approximately 870 species, including many species of mice, rats, and gerbils found naturally throughout Eurasia, Africa, and Australia.
The Old World rats and mice, part of the subfamily Murinae in the family Muridae, comprise at least 519 species. Members of this subfamily are called murines. In terms of species richness, this subfamily is larger than all mammal families except the Cricetidae and Muridae, and is larger than all mammal orders except the bats and the remainder of the rodents.
The bush rat or Australian bush rat is a small Australian nocturnal animal. It is an omnivore and one of the most common indigenous species of rat on the continent, found in many heathland areas of Victoria and New South Wales.
The mammals of Australia have a rich fossil history, as well as a variety of extant mammalian species, dominated by the marsupials, but also including monotremes and placentals. The marsupials evolved to fill specific ecological niches, and in many cases they are physically similar to the placental mammals in Eurasia and North America that occupy similar niches, a phenomenon known as convergent evolution. For example, the top mammalian predators in Australia, the Tasmanian tiger and the marsupial lion, bore a striking resemblance to large canids such as the gray wolf and large cats respectively; gliding possums and flying squirrels have similar adaptations enabling their arboreal lifestyle; and the numbat and anteaters are both digging insectivores. Most of Australia's mammals are herbivores or omnivores.
The heath mouse is a species of mouse in the subfamily Murinae, the Old World rats and mice, found in Australia.
The pale field rat is a small rat endemic to Australia. It is a nocturnal and herbivorous rodent that resides throughout the day in shallow burrows made in loose sand. Once widespread, its range has become greatly reduced and it is restricted to the grasslands, sedges, and cane-fields at the north and east of the continent. Its fur is an attractive yellow-brown colour, with grey or cream at the underside. This medium-sized rat has a tail shorter than its body.
A squirrel king is a collection of squirrels whose tails have tangled together, making them unable to separate themselves. It is similar to a phenomenon recorded in rats, the rat king. A squirrel king starts as a litter of young in the same nest, whose tails become knotted together by nesting materials and/or by tree sap gluing the tails together, particularly if the young squirrels have been gnawing bark of the tree that their nest is in, letting sap flow. If the squirrels are not separated, they may fall to the ground still joined to each other when they try to come out of their nest, and will invariably die unless separated through human intervention. Unlike the rat king, the squirrel king is not found in medieval European literature.
Oryzomys antillarum, also known as the Jamaican rice rat, is an extinct rodent of Jamaica. A member of the genus Oryzomys within the family Cricetidae, it is similar to O. couesi of mainland Central America, from where it may have dispersed to its island during the last glacial period. O. antillarum is common in subfossil cave faunas and is also known from three specimens collected live in the 19th century. Some historical records of Jamaican rats may pertain to it. The species probably became extinct late in the 19th century, perhaps due to the introduction of the small Indian mongoose, competition with introduced rodents such as the brown rat, and habitat destruction.
A pack rat or packrat, also called a woodrat or trade rat, are any species in the North and Central American rodent genus Neotoma. Pack rats have a rat-like appearance, with long tails, large ears, and large, black eyes. Pack rats are noticeably larger than deer mice, harvest mice, and grasshopper mice, and are usually somewhat larger than cotton rats.
Rodents are mammals of the order Rodentia, which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are native to all major land masses except for Antarctica, and several oceanic islands, though they have subsequently been introduced to most of these land masses by human activity.
Guy Graham Musser was an American zoologist. His main research was in the field of the rodent subfamily Murinae, in which he has described many new species.
Trypanosoma lewisi is a globally distributed parasite of Rattus species and other rodents such as mice, and of kangaroo rats in America. Among these host species were two endemic species of rats: Rattus macleari and Rattus nativitatis. Both are now believed to be extinct. It is not very clear whether or not the same parasite infected both species. However, both parasites are very similar. The northern rat flea acts as the vector for the parasite, harboring the epimastigote stage in its midgut. The trypomastigote is the stage that is present in the main host, the rodent. The epimastigote form attaches itself to the rectum of the insect using its flagella to burrow through the rectal walls. The parasites also appear in the flea's feces. Ingestion of either the flea or its feces during grooming infects the host rodent with the parasites. T. lewisi is normally non-pathogenic but is known to have produced fatal infections in rats.
The Amazing Maurice is a 2022 animated fantasy comedy film directed by Toby Genkel and co-directed by Florian Westermann, from a screenplay by Terry Rossio, based on the 2001 novel The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett. The film stars Hugh Laurie, Emilia Clarke, David Thewlis, Himesh Patel, Gemma Arterton, Joe Sugg, Ariyon Bakare, Julie Atherton, Rob Brydon, Hugh Bonneville and David Tennant. The story follows Maurice, a streetwise ginger cat who befriends the talking rats by coming up with a money-making scam.
Hydromyini is a very large, diverse tribe of muroid rodents in the subfamily Murinae. They are the dominant native rodents in Australasia and one of only two native rodent groups there, the other being the R. fuscipes group of the genus Rattus in the tribe Rattini. They are also found in parts of Southeast Asia.
The Otago Museum's rat king: This display features a family of Rattus rattus, discovered in the 1930s. They had fallen from their nest in the rafters of a shipping company shed, and were immediately followed to the floor by a parent who vigorously defended the young.
