Mouse king in nature. Rat king - what does this concept mean in psychology? Is there a rat king
The rat king is an inexplicable natural phenomenon that modern science is puzzling over. This topic has been addressed by: Ert Ertrus, Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann in his fairy tale "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King", James Herbert in his horror trilogy "Rats. Lair. Invasion." What is the Rat King?
On the picture: Rat king in natural museum Mauritianum Altenburg, Germany
This is a unique superrat, consisting of several bodies intertwined in an unknown way, or a rat with several heads (from 2 to 40 heads) on one body. Such a super-rat is carefully fed and guarded by all the rat population, in addition, she controls and rules over all rats.
Since the Rat King is an extremely rare rat phenomenon, it is still not clear whether it arises from the usual interlacing of rat tails or whether it is the result of a mutation in the likeness of Siamese twins (this is not so rare in nature). This is how James Herberg describes the Rat King "In the corner, surrounded by human bones, lay the most disgusting creature that he had ever seen. Both in reality and in nightmares. Somehow it resembled those black, giant rats, but it was even more The elongated head, the long, fat body, the thick tail... That was where the resemblance ended.
There was no hair on the body of the creature, except for a few grayish patches. Through the white and grayish-pink skin - dark veins were visible ... Harris looked into blind eyes without pupils, into yellow shimmering slits. The creature's head moved from side to side, sniffing. It seemed to be the only way she could detect the presence of a person. A terrible, almost poisonous stench emanated from the creature. There was a bump on the side of the big head. The bump was almost as big as the head itself, and it also rocked back and forth. Harris took a closer look and saw on the bump ... something that looked like a mouth! God! Yes, this creature has two heads! The second head had no eyes, but it had a mouth with fragments of teeth, no ears, but it had a long, sharp nose.
There are many fantastic stories about the Rat King.
The Rat King in an old engraving.
According to one of them, in such a cluster, all the rats are dominated by a huge king rat. Another tells that this huge, sedentary mass of rats is the object of concern for other relatives. References to this phenomenon are found mainly in German sources.
The German naturalist Konrad Gesner in the 16th century explained the phenomenon as follows: “... the old rat becomes very large, and young relatives feed it. Such a rat is called the rat king." Only since the 18th century has this name been attached to a group of rats with twisted tails. In the Middle Ages, the king of rats was considered an accomplice of the devil, endowed with great power and magical power, the ability to induce pestilence, famine and natural disasters.
It was also believed that the king is able to turn into a man and fulfill someone's desires. But the meeting with the king of rats foreshadowed trouble: the Inquisition severely cracked down on the owner of the house in which this creature was found. The townspeople looked askance at the man who found the rat lord, but they believed: if you bow to the many-headed monster, it will give good luck and wealth. True, not everyone dared to bow to a strange creature. In the city chronicles of Darmstadt, it is said that people found a huge rat king, which broke into two smaller ones. When they tried to kill one of them, the rats simply gnawed each other's throats. Another king was thrown into the hearth, and the fiery tongues instantly turned an ominous green. And here is another written evidence: “1918. After the First World War, the rats left the city.
The first in the procession carried away on their backs a large many-headed creature - their king. Anomaly of nature! Information about rat kings was summarized by the Dutch scientist Martin Hart. According to Hart, the first evidence of this phenomenon is contained in a poem by Johannes Sambukus published in 1564, and only from 1564 to 1963. 57 rat kings have been found in the world. But these figures give a very approximate idea of the frequency of the phenomenon, because not all cases have been described.
The last time the rat king was found in January 2005 in Estonia. The owner of a farm located near the village of Saru, going into the barn, saw something unusual: a group of rats rushed about on the floor. They squealed in fright, but did not run away, as if something was holding them in place. The owner killed the rats with a stick. The animals lay for almost two months in a barn, and in March zoologists and journalists learned about the find, who transported a bunch of 13 rats to the University of Tartu and put them in alcohol. Rat kings could be artificially created by people, because they were shown for money. But most likely, most of the rat kings appeared naturally: most of the rat kings were found alive, and you can only tie the tails of living animals in the laboratory. Some sources say that Kindred help their kings. In the article “A Mystical Anomaly of Nature” by N. Kontsedalova we read: “For obvious reasons, the king is almost unable to move.
He doesn't need it. The subjects carry it on their backs. They feed him, water him, groom him and cherish him. The strongest males and the most aggressive females bow before him. The power of the king in the pack is unlimited, his appearance breaks the social organization of rats, and the warring packs unite under his protection. Doctor of Biological Sciences E.V. Kotenkova in the article "Mice and rats - heroes of fantastic stories and legends" refutes this version: "A brood of four rats lived in a small double cage. In one part there is a nest, in the other - a feeder and a drinking bowl.
Between them is a passage into which only one animal can climb. Since the cages have not been cleaned for a long time, they did not notice that the food that is poured into the feeder remains almost untouched, and the rats, when frightened, hiding in a corner, squeak, which usually does not happen with black rats. Then they found that one rat had died.
When they began to take it out, they saw that the other two were linked to it by their tails. It was not possible to separate them - the tails stuck together so strongly between themselves and with the litter. The tails had to be amputated, but it was too late, as the animals soon died of exhaustion. The remaining free rat, the fourth of this brood, did not feed its brothers in trouble, and the animals themselves, linked by tails, could not crawl to the feeder.
Exists in nature. The rat king is a few rats with tangled and fused tails, linked into such a strong knot that it is no longer possible for them to disengage.
In such a bundle, rats are forced to live permanently. They cannot move independently, get their own food and run away from danger, they suffer from pain in knotted tails when comrades in misfortune twitch in different directions. From sharp jerks, the vertebrae crack, from pain and anger they bite each other, due to circulatory disorders in injured places, gangrene begins, so the rat king is always doomed to a long painful death.
The very name "rat king" came from the German language - "Rattenkonig", in which it has been used for centuries both literally and figuratively. So called a person who lives at the expense of others. In the animal kingdom, the rat king is practically immobile, which survives thanks to the offerings of his relatives. How such a bunch of animals is formed is still a mystery, and there are many hypotheses on this score.
There are also many fantastic stories about the Rat King.
According to one of these stories, in such a cluster, all the rats are dominated by an enormous king rat. Another tells that this huge, sedentary mass of rats is the object of concern for other relatives. References to this phenomenon are found mainly in German sources.
The German naturalist Konrad Gesner in the 16th century explained the phenomenon as follows: “... the old rat becomes very large, and young relatives feed it. Such a rat is called the rat king." Only since the 18th century has this name been attached to a group of rats with twisted tails. In the Middle Ages, the king of rats was considered an accomplice of the devil, endowed with great power and magical power, the ability to induce pestilence, famine and natural disasters.
It was also believed that the king is able to turn into a man and fulfill someone's desires. But the meeting with the king of rats foreshadowed trouble: the Inquisition severely cracked down on the owner of the house in which this creature was found. The townspeople looked askance at the man who found the rat lord, but they believed: if you bow to the many-headed monster, it will give good luck and wealth.
All cases of discovery of rat kings described over 400 years were formed only from black rats. The exception was the rat king from a breed of rice rats found on the island of Java in 1918. The number of rats in a bunch usually varies from 3 to 32, and they usually all belong to the same age group. Kings have never been met with gray rats. Most likely because the tails of gray rats are shorter, thicker and less flexible than those of black ones.
The Mauritianum Museum in Altenburg (Germany) houses the mummy of the "King", consisting of 32 rats, which was found in a fireplace in a mill in Buchheim, in 1828.
Where do rat kings come from?
The most plausible version explains this phenomenon. Rats in winter willingly sleep together in a common nest. The tips of the tails can freeze or stick together, and when the rats start moving in different directions during awakening, they tighten the tails into a knot. This hypothesis was confirmed in the laboratory, when the tails of rats were artificially glued together. After some time, the tails tied into a knot, and the shape of the knot was exactly the same as that of rat kings found in nature.
The last time the rat king was found in January 2005 in Estonia. The owner of a farm located near the village of Saru, going into the barn, saw something unusual: a group of rats rushed about on the floor. They squealed in fright, but did not run away, as if something was holding them in place. The owner killed the rats with a stick. lain for almost two months in a barn, and in March zoologists and journalists learned about the find, who transported a bunch of 13 rats to the University of Tartu and put them in alcohol.
PS
"An experiment was conducted on rats.
In order to study their ability to swim, Didier Desor, a scientist from the laboratory of behavioral biology of the University of Nancy, placed six rats in a cage, from which there was only one way out - into the pool. To get to the feeder with food, you had to swim across the pool. It soon became clear that not all rats go to get food. The roles were distributed as follows: two exploited swimmers, two exploiters, one independent swimmer and one scapegoat.
Two exploited sailed for food. When they returned to the cage, two exploiters beat them and dipped their heads into the water until they released the prey. Only by feeding their masters, two slaves received their own portion. The exploiters never swam across the pool to get enough, it was enough for them to beat the swimmers.
An independent swimmer was strong enough and did not obey the exploiters. And, finally, the scapegoat could neither swim nor intimidate the exploited, he simply collected the crumbs scattered during the fights. The same group structure - two exploited, two exploiters, an independent swimmer and a scapegoat - was repeated during the twenty-cell experiment.
To better understand the mechanism of the emergence of hierarchy, Didier Desor placed six exploiters in one cell. They fought all night. By morning, the roles were distributed according to the usual pattern: two exploiters, two exploited, an independent swimmer and a scapegoat. An experiment with six exploited, six independents, and six scapegoats gave the same result.
Scientists from Nancy learned another result of these experiments by opening the skulls of the subjects and analyzing the state of their brains. It was not the scapegoats who were not exploited, but the exploiters who suffered the most destructive effects of stress. They were afraid that the slaves would no longer obey them."
P.S. The experiment is described by Bernard Werber.
I borrowed some facts from paranormal-news.ru and Madame Harms.
A.I.MILYUTIN, Candidate of Biology, Curator of the Vertebrate Collection of the Zoological Museum of the University of Tartu
The whole city gathered in front of the town hall. Today is the rat trial. They are waiting for the rat king himself to arrive at the town hall. They say he has fifteen heads and one body. On each head of exquisite workmanship is a golden crown the size of a hazelnut.
Pied Piper of Hamelin.
From the book "In the land of legends. Legends of past centuries in retelling for children"
About rats, their closest and most hated neighbors, people have made legends at all times. Let us recall the Pied Piper of Hamelin, who allegedly lured rats out of the city by playing his flute in 1284, or the fantastic stories of the perestroika period about giant cannibal rats living in the Moscow metro. But here's what's amazing: some seemingly completely unbelievable stories about rats are scientifically confirmed. The Rat King, for example, does exist.
However, this phenomenon has nothing to do with the monarchy. The rat king is not called one animal, but a group of rats with intertwined tails. A bunch can consist of two to several dozen animals. The misleading name seems to have come from the German language (Rattenkonig), where it has been used for centuries, both literally and figuratively, denoting a person living at someone else's expense. The German naturalist Konrad Gesner in the 16th century explained this expression as follows: "They say that a rat becomes very large in old age, and young rats feed it. Such a rat is called the rat king." It was not until the 18th century that the name "rat king" was attached to a bunch of rats. This peculiar phenomenon is found very rarely, and yet the rat king appears from time to time in one country or another, causing amazement and fear in people. He paid his last visit two years ago to Estonia.
Rat King of Saroo
On January 16, 2005, Rein Kõiv, the owner of Alaveski Farm, located in the village of Saru in the very south of Estonia, went to feed the pheasants as usual. Looking under the canopy where the feeder was, he saw something unusual. A group of rats thrashed about on the sandy floor. They squealed in fright, but did not run away, as if something was holding them in place. The owner called his son for help, and he killed the rats with a stick. Disdainful to touch them with his hands, the father kicked the nearest rat with his foot, but it remained in place - the tails of the animals were tied. In total, there were sixteen rats in the bunch, presumably nine of them were alive at the time of discovery, others were dead. Apparently, the rats were trying to get out of a narrow hole in the frozen sand. The upper animals, expanding the exit of the hole, buried alive those who were below
A bunch of dead rats was thrown on a pile of boards, where it lay for almost two months, since the winter was frosty. Neighbors came to gawk at an unusual find, it was also demonstrated at a meeting of the local hunting section. Over time, the tails shrank, one rat fell out of the bundle and was thrown away. Another two rats were dragged away by some predator - one of them left a tail in a bundle.
Only in early March, zoologists and journalists learned about the find. At that time, Alaveski farm was visited by a relative of the owner, a journalist from the local newspaper Evar Saar. He wanted to know what experts think about this phenomenon, and contacted the Tallinn Zoo, and from there they called the author of these lines. Thanks to the assistance of E. Saar, I was able to examine the place where the rat king was found, interview eyewitnesses and, most importantly, save his remains.
The king of Saru was transported to the Zoological Museum of the University of Tartu and put in alcohol. Now it is on display at the museum and is available for viewing to everyone (Fig. 3).
By the time of delivery to the museum, on March 10, 13 out of 16 rats and the tail from the 14th rat were preserved in the composition of the rat king. They were adult black rats (Rattus rattus) - seven males and six females. The animals were of normal fatness. Their tails shrunk from long exposure to the open air, and upon examination, the bundle began to disintegrate. However, strongly flattened areas on the tails indicated that the knot was very tight. The "royal share" turned out to be unenviable: two rats were gnawed, apparently, by other rats, and only a larger animal, possibly a ferret, could drag out of the bunch of two animals (there were no cats on the farm).
Other finds: rat, squirrel and mouse kings
My interest in rat kings began many years ago. In 1986, in response to an appeal to the public to report information about encounters with rare species of mammals, an unusual letter arrived at the Tallinn Zoo, where I was then working. The author of the letter, Kaarel Pedja from Viljandi County, in southern Estonia, wrote the following: “A very interesting incident happened about 15 years ago. Severe frosts lasted for many weeks in a row, and in the premises of our former dairy factory in Lalsi-Lätkalu, 18 rats turned out to have their tails linked. Obviously, fleeing from the cold, they climbed on top of each other in the wall of the building, filled with sawdust inside, and twisted their tails so that even the local resident, who found and killed them, could not untie them ... "
One frosty winter day, Wilma went into the barn and saw a rat peering at her from a hole in the wood paneling. The animal behaved unusually - it squeaked and did not try to hide. The husband called for help killed the rat, but could not pull it out of the hole, moreover, more and more heads appeared in the hole ... I had to tear the board out of the wall, after which a bunch of eighteen rats flopped onto the floor. Two animals managed to free themselves and run away, others were killed and hung in the yard so that all the villagers could look at the miracle. Unfortunately, no one could remember what year it happened - presumably in 1971. Remember that the winter was very cold. Judging by the description of the animals, they were black rats.
In 1987, the zoologist Sven Veldre told me that his father Richard Vedler (Veldre) saw three rats tied with their tails in Tartu. This happened between 1915 and 1920 - the exact date in this case is also forgotten. Thus, over the course of about 90 years, at least three rat kings were found in Estonia.
Information about rat kings was summarized in his book by the Dutch scientist Martin Hart. The facts below are taken primarily from this source. According to Hart, the first written evidence of tail-twisting in rats comes from a poem by Johannes Sambukus published in 1564. It describes a noble gentleman who is pestered by rats. His servant saw seven rats tied together with ropes. The poem is provided with an engraving, which depicts a bunch of seven rats. According to Hart, from 1564 to 1963, 57 rat kings were found and described in the world. To these should be added one find from Lithuania (I read about it in the "Proceedings of the IV Baltic Ornithological Conference", which talked about outside inhabitants of hollows), France (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_king) and Estonia ( Tartu find, which was mentioned above).
Consequently, about 60 rat kings have been described over 400 years, that is, an average of 15 cases per hundred years. These figures still give only a very approximate idea of the frequency of the described phenomenon. On the one hand, not all recorded finds of rat kings are completely reliable - falsification could have taken place. On the other hand, life shows that not all cases are reflected in the press - at best, the local press writes about them, but professional biologists in other countries do not learn about them. In addition, for sure, many "kings" remain undetected: who knows how many of them ingloriously perish under the floors and in the walls, unable to get out through the burrows and outlets designed for one animal?
All found rat kings, with one exception, were formed from black rats. The exception was the rat king, found on the island of Java in 1918: it consisted of rice rats (R. argentiventer). It is noteworthy that among the widespread and numerous human companions, gray rats (R. norvegicus), kings have never been met. Obviously, this is due to the fact that the tails of gray rats are shorter, thicker and less flexible than those of black rats.
In the described rat kings, the number of animals in a bunch varied from 3 to 32. Usually, rats from one bunch belonged to the same age group - all were either young or adults. Most of the rat kings have been found alive. They were met at different times of the year, but more often in winter and spring. The geography of the finds, with the exception of Javanese and South African, is limited to the middle zone of Europe: the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Poland, Lithuania, and Estonia. However, most of the rat kings were found in Germany.
In other animals, tail entanglement is even rarer than in rats. Only a few such cases have been described in the common squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris), gray squirrel (S. carolinensis), wood mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus) and house mouse (Mus musculus). Hart mentions only five squirrel kings: two in Europe and three in America. European finds were made in 1921 and 1951.
American "kings" were found in wild gray squirrels in the same place, on the territory of a zoo in the state of South Carolina in 1948 - 1951. Squirrel kings consisted of 3 - 7 animals, and some of them were dead by the time they were discovered. It is noteworthy that those who found the squirrel kings usually not only did not kill, but also provided them with veterinary care. Only the proteins in the bundle found in Europe in 1951 were unlucky - they were alcoholized.
In April 1929, in Holstein (Germany), young wood mice were found bound by their tails. In house mice, kings were observed in Hannover (Germany) and in Moscow (this is described in the book by E.V. Kotenkova). Both cases occurred in research laboratories; both German and Moscow mice were stressed, with bleeding bites on their tails.
How are rat kings formed?
The mechanism of the formation of the rat king is still not completely clear. There are many hypotheses on this subject, from completely ridiculous to quite scientific. The first category includes the assumption that stronger rats themselves bind their weaker relatives, thus creating for themselves something like a hammock for relaxation. Others claim that rat kings are sent from time to time from heaven to remind people of their sinfulness. There are only three more or less convincing hypotheses: 1) rat kings are artificially created by people, 2) tails are tied into a knot as a result of random movements, 3) tails are tied into a knot when glued or frozen.
Proponents of the first hypothesis suggest that tail-bound rats may be the subject of a prank or a means of enrichment. Indeed, in the old days, rat kings were shown to the curious for money, and if so, why couldn't interested parties make the king themselves? Could. Moreover, it is likely that such cases were. However, there is a strong case that most rat kings arose naturally. Firstly, the knot that is obtained by tying the tails of dead rats is not like the one we see in surviving rat kings. Secondly, a significant part of the rat kings were found alive, and tails of live rats can only be tied under anesthesia in the laboratory, but not in barnyards, mills or in living rooms where they were usually found. Finally, rat kings are known in the temperate zone of Europe only in black rats, which are quite rare here. It would be easier for counterfeiters to take advantage of the more accessible gray rats.
According to the second hypothesis, the knot occurs when rats wag their tails during play or quarrels, or wrap their tail around the tail of another rat when they are suddenly frightened. This hypothesis, however, does not explain in any way the mechanism of the formation of the node. In addition, she does not find confirmation in real life. After all, during the game or quarrels, rats face each other with their noses, not their tails. Black rats, although they can cover branches with their tails while climbing, do not wave their tails when frightened. Moreover, frightened rats do not gather in a heap, but scatter in all directions. I have kept dozens of wild black rats in cages for many years. The animals willingly played with each other, and they had to experience fear from contact with a person every day when feeding, cleaning, trapping, but tail interlacing never happened. The formation of the rat king in a cage is described in the already mentioned book by Kotenkova and co-authors, however, judging by the fact that the king was already beyond starvation, people in this case did not annoy the rats too much.
The third hypothesis explains the phenomenon as follows. Rats willingly sleep together in the nest, especially in the cold season. If at the same time the tips of their tails accidentally freeze or stick together, then when they wake up, trying to free themselves, the animals will begin to move randomly - and can tighten their tails into a knot. Adhesion may be caused by drying blood, food debris, sticky nesting material, etc. Unlikely? Yes. But even rat kings are extremely rare.
Two facts speak in favor of this hypothesis. First, it was confirmed experimentally in the laboratory on gray rats. Artificially glued tails after some time tied into a knot, and the shape of the knot was characteristic of rat kings found in nature. Even after the glue was removed, the rats could not free themselves from the knot. Secondly, most of the kings were found during the cold season, when the wet tips of the tails could be caught by frost.
Estonian finds of rat kings also support the bonding-freezing hypothesis. So, the king from Lalsi-Lyatkalu was found in a very cold winter, and the king from Saru - just after the unusual January thaw suddenly gave way to frosty weather. Another argument is the geography of the finds of rat kings in the world. Why are most of them found precisely in the temperate zone of Europe, and not in tropical countries, where black rats are much more common and numerous? Perhaps because Central Europe is one of the few places in the world where black rats live in cold climates. Although the climate is even harsher in Northern Europe, Siberia or Canada, rat kings have not been found there, since there are no permanent populations of black rats. There is no information about black kings, for example, from India, where black rats are common, but there are no frosts.
Why do rat kings form?
Considering that rats bound by their tails are doomed to a painful death, the name "rat king" sounds like an evil mockery. What a glaring dissonance with the amazing expediency that reigns in nature! Tail-bound rats cannot move normally, get food, hide from enemies. They suffer from pain in their knotted tails, which their comrades in misfortune constantly pull in one direction or the other, to cracks in the vertebrae. A tightly tightened knot leads to the development of gangrene. Why, despite millions of years of improvement in structure, physiology and behavior, rats are sometimes so absurdly defenseless?
I am inclined to explain the appearance of rat kings by the costs of evolution. The rat king is a harsh price that the species Rattus rattus is sometimes forced to pay for the happiness of possessing an amazing tail. This is not a joke: the black rat climbs superbly, and the long, thin and flexible tail serves as its balancer and fifth limb. Apparently, in nature there is not a single useful device that, under certain circumstances, could not become harmful.
On a cold January morning in 2005 in the village of Saru in southern Estonia, farmer Rein Kyiv and his son made a curious discovery. On the sandy floor of their barn, they found a group of 16 rats whose tails were inexplicably tangled. The rats squealed and tried their best to escape, but the harder they tried, the tighter the knot tightened. The animals apparently tried to dig themselves out of the narrow hole, but in the struggle with each other, some of them died under the sand. The seven rats in the ball were already dead. Rein's son decided to put an end to the devilish scene by taking a stick and killing the rest of the unfortunate animals.
Rain Kyiv did not know then, but what he discovered was an extremely rare phenomenon called the "Rat King".
The phrase "rat king" in most people is associated with the evil hero of the fairy tale "The Nutcracker" - a huge rat with three heads, commanding his subjects. This is exactly what, according to the average person, the king looks like in the rat kingdom.
Someone thinks more pragmatically and considers such a king to be a kind of rat sitting on top of a hierarchical pyramid and controlling his “subjects”. It is the “servants” who provide him with food, drink and other benefits, although outwardly the lord is no different from his own subordinates.
Likewise, a rat king is not an individual who occupies a privileged position in a rat colony. Although there is a certain hierarchy in the rat colony, it is not customary to call its "leader" the king. Moreover, scientists strongly doubt that rats with tangled tails can live long and occupy at least some significant place in the hierarchical pyramid.
And what really is the rat king from the point of view of science?
From a scientific point of view, the rat king is a rare natural phenomenon in which the tails of several rats are intertwined so tightly that animals cannot unravel them. Animals caught in such trouble are not able to coordinate their movements and, as a result, cannot purposefully move and get food, and therefore quickly die of hunger.
The main mystery of the rat kings is that no one has ever found them alive - only the finds of long-withered corpses have been documented. There are no photos, no videos, no reports of scientists about living rat kings, which means there is no firm conviction that such kings can live at least for some time.
On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine that the tails of rats are woven into an inextricable knot after death. On the contrary, the version that it is precisely because of the constant fuss of animals that their tails can form such a knot looks plausible.
It is also plausible to assume that, in fact, tangled tails do not allow the animals to get food normally and lead to death.
It is known after all that rats cannot starve for more than 3-4 days. So, after entangling the tails, the animals are doomed.
Most scientists interpret this data as follows: for rare reasons, the tails of rats stick together and get tangled, after which the animals die relatively quickly either from hunger or from the same reasons that caused the tails to be tangled. And these reasons can be quite banal, despite the uniqueness of their consequences.
Reasons why rats might grow together with their tails
There are several hypotheses about the reasons for the appearance of rat kings. Considering them, you need to take into account the actual data:
All rat kings were found only in areas with a temperate and cold climate;
- This phenomenon is known only for black and rice rats, as well as mice. Rat kings are not known among Pasyuks and have never been found.
- Some researchers believe that rats “grow together” with their tails due to living in very close quarters, where the tails themselves are constantly intertwined and sooner or later can be tied into a knot.
Other experts believe that the causes of intertwining are unsanitary conditions, in which the tails of animals stick together due to food debris on them, blood, dirt and earth.
But these hypotheses do not explain all the facts. It is not clear, for example, why kings are not found in the tropics, where rats are more numerous, live in very dense colonies and often arrange nests in the litter of gardens and plantations, among rotting foliage and fruits? After all, the probability of tails sticking together is higher here ...
A more likely theory is that the tails of rats freeze when spending the night in cold burrows. Animals climb into such shelters in large numbers to keep warm, but on especially cold nights, even their accumulation does not provide sufficient temperature - as a result, the moisture on the hairs freezes, and the tails stick together. Unsanitary conditions here also contribute to the sticking of tails (often they turn out to be smeared with excrement), but this is not the main reason. After waking up, the animals try to run away, rush in different directions and become even more entangled.
It is enough for several tens of hairs on two (or more) tails to stick together so that the animals cannot separate them without injury. To a person who has ever stuck his tongue to frozen metal, such a phenomenon is completely understandable.
In addition, the tail freezing hypothesis explains some of the facts. Gray rats do not have "kings", because their tails are short and less mobile than black ones, they are more difficult to tangle. In warm climates, however, no rats are exposed to conditions in which their tails can freeze to each other.
Therefore, it is freezing during collective overnight stays that is considered the most reliable reason for the appearance of rat kings. It means, by the way, that such an event is only a tragedy for the animals. They are definitely not fed by relatives, they definitely do not have any “power” and are doomed to a painful death from hunger, cold and stress.
This same theory explains why live rat kings have not been found. Not only is this phenomenon very rare, but also animals with tangled tails cannot get out of their shelters and catch the eye of a person. After the animals are trapped, they die of starvation on the fifth or seventh day.
It is negligible that during these days a person will find and open the shelter. And even if the case from Estonia is true, it is the very exception that confirms the rule.
The rat king is a mythical animal mentioned in European legends. The Rat King is believed to be composed of several rats fused or knotted with their tails. Other rats allegedly feed their king and take care of him.
Occasionally, clusters of individuals with knotted tails, often broken or damaged, are found in rat habitats. Such "nests" are called the "Rat King". There are reports that living "rat kings" were also found, but only the facts of the discovery of burial grounds are documented. Various hypotheses about the origin of such clusters have been put forward.
The "Rat King" is described in Alfred Edmund Brem's book Animal Life. General history of the animal kingdom":
Rats living in the wild are subject to a very special disease: several of them grow together with their tails and form the so-called rat king, which in the old days they had, of course, a different concept than now, when it can be seen in almost every museum. Previously, it was thought that the rat king in a golden crown sits on a throne of several subjects fused together and from here decides the fate of the entire rat kingdom! In any case, it is true that sometimes quite a large number of rats are encountered, closely intertwined with their tails, they can hardly move and compassionate rats bring them food out of pity. Until now, the real reason for this phenomenon is not yet known. It is thought that some special sweating on the tails of rats causes them to stick together, but no one can say anything positive.
The author of the well-known contemporary report of the "rat king" in the scientific literature did not observe the "rat king" in a living state and refers to eyewitness accounts. He puts forward a hypothesis according to which rats can stick together or stick together with their tails during sleep in a common nest at a very low ambient temperature, and after waking up, trying to free themselves, form a “rat king”. There is also another hypothesis - if a large brood of small rat pups is in a narrow space (nest), then their fragile, flexible tails intertwine when swarming and playing. With very rapid growth in rats, the tail becomes stiff and the brood becomes the rat king. In general, there is no evidence for the existence of living "rat kings".
Rat King at the Mauritian Museum of Natural History (Altenburg, Germany)
In Thuringia, in the city of Altenburg, there is the largest of the "Rat Kings" known to science. The mummified remains of the "King", consisting of 32 rats, were found in a fireplace in a mill in the town of Buchheim, in 1828. The rat king preserved in alcohol was shown in the museums of Hamburg, Gmelin, Göttingen and Stuttgart.
In general, the number of known finds of rat kings is small. According to various sources, 35-50 cases are known.
The earliest document containing information about rat kings dates back to 1564. After black rats were supplanted by gray rats in the 18th century, this phenomenon began to decline. However, since the beginning of the 20th century, several cases of discovery of rat kings have been recorded; the last cases occurred on April 10, 1986 in France (Vendee) and on January 16, 2005 in Estonia (Võrumaa).
The most famous examples of "rat kings" are formed from black rats (Rattus rattus). The only find involving the "Sawah rat" (Rattus rattus brevicaudatus) occurred on March 23, 1918 at Bogor in Java, where a rat king of ten young field rats was found. Similar “gluings” of other species were also found: in April 1929, a group of young wood mice (Apodemus sylvaticus) was reported from Holstein, and a “squirrel king” was also reported from there, a sample of which is allegedly kept at the Zoological Institute of the University of Hamburg. "King Rat" should not be confused with Siamese twins, which occur in many species. In "rat kings", the animals grow together only after birth, but are separated during childbirth.
The "King Rat", discovered in 1963 by the Dutch farmer P. van Nijnatten at Rucphen (from the town of Rucphen) and made famous by the cryptozoologist M. Schneider, consisted of seven rats. X-rays showed callus formation when their tails were broken, proving that these animals must have lived in this condition for a long period of time. The number of adult animals among the "rat kings" also confirms this theory.
Most researchers believe that these finds are artifacts created through the conscious manipulation of people, such as tying dead rats with their tails and mummifying them. Several reports of living rat kings remain unconfirmed. It is assumed that the reason for their formation is a lack of space, which is why young rats live too close and inevitably get tangled with their tails. However, this theory is opposed by the usual behavior of rats, which, as a rule, look for the most comfortable places. There have been no scientific studies proving the natural cause of this phenomenon, as a result of which most researchers consider the existence of "rat kings" a myth.
Historically, rat kings have been considered an extremely bad omen, particularly associated with disease. This is a natural and reasonable conclusion, since large populations of rats in a small area usually bring disease and pestilence with them. With an increase in the rat population, the likelihood of an outbreak of diseases increases - for example, the black death, which was spread by rat fleas.
The term "rat king" was often misunderstood as "rat king". This idea was especially attractive for literary and artistic creativity: for example, in Hoffmann's fairy tale "The Nutcracker" there is a villain - the seven-headed mouse king (in the productions of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet based on this fairy tale, the mouse king rarely retains many heads). Another example is the tale "Rattenkönig Birlibi" by Ernst Moritz Arndt.
Today, the rat king is sometimes used as a monster in horror fiction (such as James Herbert's Rats), but the phrase itself has a certain appeal and is, for example, the title of the debut novels of British writers James Clavell, The Rat King (English) (1962) and China Mieville's The Rat King (1998) (English). A fantastic interpretation of the legend of the "Rat King" and his supposed power over other rats and humans can be found in Terry Pratchett's novel The Marvelous Maurice and His Learned Rodents. One of the last references to the "rat king" is given in Lars von Trier's film Epidemic, where he was an omen of illness. The same concept is formed in the detective novel "The Rat King" by Michael Dibdin. The Rat King also appears in Annie Proulx's novel The Accordion of Crimes.
In the 1987 television version of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series, one of several non-mutated returning villains was "The Rat King" - a dirty lunatic in rags who can control rats - first with a flute (an allusion to the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin), and then simply by the power of thought.
The Rat King is also the name of the grotesque mutant from James Herbert's Rat Trilogy.
In the cycle of fantastic stories by Leonid Kudryavtsev “The World-Chain”, the Rat King is one of the heroes who has witchcraft abilities, thanks to which he easily travels between worlds, courage, honor and dignity. It is characterized rather positively.
In Mercy Shelley's novel 2048, the "rat king" used AI like a human.
A. S. Green's story "The Pied Piper" mentions a fictional book by Ert Ertrus "The Pantry of the Rat King", which describes the properties and behavioral characteristics of a mythical creature (Green's rats are werewolves who can turn into people).
In Avram Davidson's short story "The Tail-Tied Kings", a group of fused rats, "Mothers and Fathers", runs the rat community, while being completely helpless and completely dependent on other rats.
In rat flocks, there is no pronounced subordination of individuals. There are leaders here, both males and females, but the dominant position allows them only to occupy the best shelters. Also, in conditions of high population density, when too many rats live on a unit of space, it is the leader individuals that, first of all, participate in reproduction. Animals that are on the lower levels of the hierarchy often do not participate in this celebration of life.
Thus, even in a very large and dense flock of rats, a “king of rats” cannot live, who would give some orders and be fed by other individuals. Even leading animals, on an equal basis with the rest, participate in obtaining food and raising offspring, they are equally at risk of being caught and poisoned.
And one more thing: small local populations of rats can represent a large family, a group of descendants of a single female. Given that the rat itself lives and breeds up to 3-4 years, and each new brood of 8-15 rat pups appears every month and a half, and her own offspring begin to breed 7-8 months after birth, by the end of her life such a mother - the heroine can be surrounded by hundreds of descendants of different generations.
This female does not have special privileges, but is usually one of the leaders of the population. If the reader wishes, she is the queen of rats.
Also in mythology and in various folk tales there are references to people who controlled rats in one way or another. The most famous of these legends tells of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, who, by order of the authorities of the German city, carried all the rats into the reservoir by playing the flute and drowned them there, and when the authorities refused to pay the fee, he did the same with a group of children.
It is noteworthy that this story is very widespread and seems to be based on some real historical events, since many of its formulations in the literature indicate specific dates. Most interpretations indicate that the rat catcher hypnotized rats with his music, and children with unusual manners and bright clothes.
There are also historical reports of people who controlled rats in one way or another, or drove them out of cities in inexplicable ways. Many of these reports are typical legends or metaphors, but there are some that look more or less authentic.
Today, however, no such human abilities have been discovered and confirmed that would allow him to control the behavior of rats. Yes, animals can be frightened by sounds or smells, tame individuals can be trained, but a person is not capable of forcing wild rats to perform certain actions anywhere. So, messages about such people can be safely considered fairy tales or metaphors.
Signs and myths associated with rat kings
Among the people, the discovery of the rat king has always been considered a bad omen. From the Middle Ages, a belief has come down to us that the rat king brings illness and death to the house of the person who discovered it.
In principle, such a sign has a rational grain: rats are companions of unsanitary conditions, carriers of many diseases. It was they who in the Middle Ages became the cause of the plague pandemic, which literally devastated some European countries and led to the death of millions of people. The very fact of finding the rat king means that there are too many rats in a particular place, and that they live in very difficult conditions.
Similarly, old dream books consider dreaming of rats woven with tails as an omen of a serious illness.
In ancient mythology, it was also believed that the rat king found on the ship portends the flooding of the ship itself. It is noteworthy that there are no reports (even unconfirmed) about the finds of "kings" on ships.
So we draw the final conclusion: the rat king is most likely an accident during which animals freeze and get tangled with their tails, cannot move and get food, and as a result die of hunger. Due to the rarity of such a phenomenon, it seems to a person something supernatural, and because of the disgust that many people feel for rats, bad omens and beliefs are associated with it.
This story was told to me by one of my distant relatives. He himself participated in all the events described, served as a mechanic on a ship that transported grain through the waters of the Black and Azov Seas.
Dry cargo ship "Marat" made regular flights from Novorossiysk to Bulgaria and Turkey. On the ship, several hundred rats accumulated in the holds, which ceased to be afraid of people and went out on deck. Sometimes sailors could watch one or more rats lying in the sun, sunbathing and basking. Sometimes people were annoyed that rats, not embarrassed by those around them, made love, proving their high fertility.
Rats were poisoned, rat traps and traps were set. But the number did not decrease. Every day the rats behaved bolder. They were already driven out of the galley, in the cabins the sailors could not rest calmly after the watch.
Terrible stories were often told in the cockpit that rats were able to bite off a sleeping person, especially a drunk one, the nose or some part of the body. Such conversations brought some long and sleepless nights. Drunkenness on the ship stopped completely, since the stories most often talked about bitten people in a state of intoxication (in the local space, you can also cure drunkenness in fairly simple ways!).
On the way to Turkey, the ship landed in the port of Sukhumi, there, on the shore in a small seaside cafe, a conversation turned about the dominance of rats on the ship. One of the old men who heard about the problem on the ship joined the sailors' conversation. It was he who advised the sailors to lime the rats with the help of the “rat king”. Questions about the rat king made it possible to find out that sometimes a rat king appears in the rat society, which destroys all the rats around him. Such rat kings are very expensive, but they are able to help.
Unfortunately, the old man did not give addresses where the sailors could purchase the Rat King. He only said that he could be brought up from the existing rat community. Inspired by the idea, the sailors returned to the ship and decided to bring out their rat king on their own.
By this time, 19 rats had been caught in rat traps. They were not thrown overboard (usually they were thrown into the water, and the gulls quickly dealt with the delicacy). A cage was specially welded, where all the caught rats were placed. They were left on deck. We agreed that no one would give the rats any food. Began to periodically observe their behavior.
Three days after the start of the experiment, the rats chose the weakest one and quickly ate it. But fresh blood only irritated, none of the remaining rats experienced satiety. Inside the cell, a bloody battle began. In a few minutes everything was decided. Only 8 rats survived, the rest became food for the rest.
For a couple of days, a temporary truce was established in the cage, but it could not last forever. Thirst and hunger provoked a new fight. No one saw her, as it happened at night. In the morning the sailors counted only six rats. Those who remained tried to take a place in some corner in order to protect themselves from behind. Now it didn't take long to continue. Everything was decided by the evening. Only four rats remained, watching each other tensely from their corner.
In the end, two remained. They were two big rats. The sailors staged a sweepstakes. They began to place bets on who would win in the end. The day came when the decisive battle took place. One left. Now they fed him a little, gave him some water. Then they were released into the hold. The winner was supposed to restore order in the rat kingdom.
When the ship was moored in the port of Trabzon (Turkey), thousands of rats escaped from the deck and rushed to the shore. The locals were frightened by the hordes of rats fleeing from the cargo ship. The ship was immediately quarantined, believing that the ship had plague. But then, after explaining the reasons for the flight of rats, the quarantine was lifted from the ship.
For a couple of months there was only one rat king on the ship. He became tame, receiving pieces of food from the hands of sailors. The ship was in order. Everyone breathed easier. Again in the evenings after the shift one could see the drunken sailors, who now felt better.
But one day the rat king came out on deck, followed by a pretty female, and nine rats closed the whole procession. Life has taken its toll. The masculine needs of the Rat King overshadowed the responsibility of protecting the ship from new rats. Then for many years the sailors brought out new kings, for some time the ship became freer. But there was such a rat that became the wife of the rat king and brought another offspring.
