On a cold January morning in 2005 in the village of Saru in southern Estonia, farmer Rein Kiev and his son made an interesting discovery. On the sandy floor of their barn, they found a group of 16 rats, whose tails were inexplicably tangled in a knot. The rats squeaked and struggled to escape, but the harder they tried, the more the knot tightened. The animals, apparently, tried to dig out of the narrow burrow, but in the fight with each other, some of them died under the sand. The seven rats in the ball were already dead. Rain's son decided to end the devilish scene by taking a stick and killing the rest of the unfortunate animals.
Rhine Kiev did not know then, but what he discovered was an extremely rare phenomenon called the "Rat King".
Most people associate the phrase "rat king" with the evil hero of the fairy tale "The Nutcracker" - a huge rat with three heads, commanding its subjects. This is how, in the opinion of an ordinary person, the king in the rat kingdom looks like.
Someone thinks more pragmatically and considers such a king to be a rat sitting at the top of the hierarchical pyramid and controlling its "subjects". It is the "servants" who provide him with food, drink and other benefits, although outwardly the ruler is no different from his subordinates.
Likewise, a rat king is not called any 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" a king. Moreover, scientists strongly doubt that rats with tangled tails are capable of long life and occupy at least some significant place in the hierarchical pyramid.
What is the rat king really like 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 untangle 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.
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The main mystery of the rat kings is that no one has ever found them alive - only the finds of long-withered corpses are 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 some time.
On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine that rats' tails twine into an unraveling knot after death. Quite the opposite, 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 normally get food and lead to death.
After all, it is known that rats cannot fast for more than 3-4 days. This means that after tangling their tails, the animals are doomed.
Most scientists interpret these data as follows: for rare reasons, rats' tails stick together and get entangled, after which the animals die relatively quickly either from hunger or from the same reasons that caused the tails to be entangled. And these reasons can be quite commonplace, despite the uniqueness of their consequences.
Reasons why rats might grow their tails
There are several hypotheses about the reasons for the appearance of rat kings. Considering them, you need to take into account the factual 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 and mice. The rat kings are not known among the Pasyuk and have never been found.
- Some researchers believe that rats "grow together" with their tails because of life in very close quarters, where the tails themselves are constantly intertwined and sooner or later may tie into a knot.
Other experts believe that the reasons for weaving are unsanitary conditions, in which the tails of the animals stick together due to food debris, 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 sticking tails here is higher …
A more probable theory is that rats' tails freeze when they spend the night in cold burrows. Animals enter 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, the tails stick together. Unsanitary conditions here also contribute to 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 scatter, rush in different directions and become even more entangled.
It is enough for a few tens of hairs on two (or more) tails to stick together so that the animals could not separate them without injury. A person who has ever adhered to frozen metal with his tongue understands such a phenomenon.
In addition, the hypothesis of freezing of tails explains some of the facts. Gray rats do not have "kings", because their tails are short and less mobile than black ones, it is more difficult to confuse them. 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 certainly are not fed by their relatives, they certainly do not have any "power" and are doomed to painful death from hunger, cold and stress.
The same theory explains why no living rat kings were found. Not only is this phenomenon very rare, but animals with tangled tails cannot get out of their shelters and catch the eye of humans. After the animals were trapped, they die of hunger on the fifth or seventh day.
The probability is negligible that it is during these days that a person will find and open a shelter. And even if the case from Estonia is true, it is the very exception that proves the rule.
The Rat King is a mythical animal mentioned in European legends. It is believed that the Rat King consists of several rats that have grown together or knotted with their tails. Other rats allegedly feed and care for their king.
Sometimes in the habitats of rats, clusters of individuals with tied tails, often broken or damaged, are found. Such "nests" are called "Rat King". There are reports that they found living "rat kings", but only the facts of the discovery of burial grounds were documented. Various hypotheses have been put forward about the origin of such clusters.
"The Rat King" is described in the book by Alfred Edmund Brehm "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, about which in the old days they had, of course, a different concept than now, when he can be seen in almost every museum. Previously, they thought that the rat king in a golden crown sits on a throne of several subjects who have grown together among themselves and from here decides the fate of the entire rat kingdom! In any case, it is true that sometimes there are quite a large number of rats tightly intertwined with tails, they can hardly move and compassionate rats, out of pity, bring them food. Until now, they do not yet know the real reason for this phenomenon. They think that some particular sweat on the tails of rats causes them to stick together, but no one can say anything positive.
The author of the well-known modern report about 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 freeze their tails while sleeping in a common nest at a very low ambient temperature, and after waking up, trying to free themselves, they form a "rat king". There is also another hypothesis - if a large brood of young rat pups is in a narrow space (nest), then their fragile, flexible tails are intertwined when swarming and playing. With very rapid growth in rats, the tail ossifies and the brood becomes the rat king. In general, there is no evidence of the existence of living "rat kings".
The Rat King at the Mauritian Museum of Natural History (Altenburg, Germany)
In Thuringia, in the city of Altenburg, there is the largest Rat Kings known to science. The mummified remains of the "King", consisting of 32 rats, were found in a fireplace at a mill in Buchheim in 1828. The rat king canned with 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 the 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 the discovery of rat kings have been recorded; the most recent cases occurred on April 10, 1986 in France (Vendee) and on January 16, 2005 in Estonia (Võrumaa).
The most famous specimens of "rat kings" are formed from black rats (Rattus rattus). The only find involving the Sawa rats (Rattus rattus brevicaudatus) occurred on March 23, 1918, in Bogor, Java, where a rat king of ten young field rats was found. Similar "gluing" of other species were also found: in April 1929, a group of young wood mice (Apodemus sylvaticus) was reported from Holstein, and from there they reported about a "squirrel king", a sample of which is allegedly kept at the Zoological Institute of the University of Hamburg. The Rat Kings should not be confused with the Siamese twins, which come in many forms. In Rat Kings, animals grow together only after birth, but are separated during childbirth.
The "Rat King", 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 the formation of calluses from fractures of their tails, which proves that these animals should have lived in this state 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 deliberate manipulation of people, for example, 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, due to which young rats live too close and inevitably become entangled in their tails. However, this theory is opposed by the usual behavior of rats, which, as a rule, look for the most comfortable places. No scientific research has been carried out to prove 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 related to 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 disease - for example, black death, which was spread by rat fleas, increases.
The term "rat king" has often been misunderstood as "king of the rats." This idea was especially attractive for literary and artistic creativity: for example, in Hoffmann's fairy tale "The Nutcracker" there is a villain - a seven-headed mouse king (in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballets based on this tale, the mouse king rarely retains many heads). Another example is the fairy tale "Rattenkönig Birlibi" by Ernst Moritz Arndt.
Today, the rat king is sometimes used as a monster in horror films (for example, "The Rats" by James Herbert), but the phrase itself has a certain appeal and is, for example, the name of the debut novels of British writers James Clavell, "The Rat King (English)" (1962) and China Mieville, The Rat King (1998). A fantastic interpretation of the legend of the "rat king" and his alleged power over other rats and people can be found in Terry Pratchett's novel The Amazing Maurice and His Scientists Rodents. One of the last references to the "rat king" comes from 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 Prue's novel The Accordion of Crime.
In the TV version of the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series, one of several unmutated returning villains was The Rat King, a filthy, ragged lunatic who can control rats - first with a flute (an allusion to the legend of the Hameln Pied Piper), and then just by power of thought.
The rat king is also called the grotesque mutant from the "rat trilogy" by James Herbert.
In the cycle of fantastic stories by Leonid Kudryavtsev "The World-Chain", the Rat King is one of the heroes, possesses witchcraft abilities, thanks to which he easily travels between worlds, courage, honor and dignity. It is characterized rather positively.
In the Halo Jones comic book series by Alan Moore and Ian Gibson, the "Rat King" was a weapon of war - a collective of five superintelligent rats with intertwined tails communicating via a computer terminal.
In Mercy Shelley's 2048 novel, the "Rat King" used AI like a human.
In AS Green's story "The Pied Piper", the fictional book by Ert Ertrus "The Pantry of the Rat King" is mentioned, which describes the properties and characteristics of the behavior of a mythical creature (Green's rats are werewolves who can transform into humans).
In Abram Davidson's short story The Tail-Tied Kings, a group of fused rats, Father and Mother, rule the rat community while being completely helpless and totally dependent on other rats.
In rat packs, there is no pronounced subordination of individuals. There are leaders here, both males and females, but the dominant position allows them only to take the best hiding places. Also, in conditions of high population density, when too many rats live on a unit of space, it is the individual leaders who, first of all, participate in reproduction. Animals on the lower levels of the hierarchy often do not participate in this celebration of life.
Thus, even in a very large and dense rat flock, a "rat king" cannot live, who would give some orders and who would be fed by other individuals. Even animal leaders, on an equal basis with the rest, participate in obtaining food and raising offspring, 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 one single female. Considering that the rat itself lives and reproduces up to 3-4 years, and each new brood of 8-15 rat pups appears every month and a half, and its own offspring begin to reproduce 7-8 months after birth, by the end of life such a mother -the heroine can be surrounded by hundreds of descendants of different generations.
This female has no special privileges, but is usually one of the leaders of the population. If the reader wishes, she is the rat queen.
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, who ordered the authorities of a German city to play the flute and carried all the rats into a pond and drowned them, 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 introduced rats into hypnosis 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 chased them out of cities in inexplicable ways. Many of these messages are typical legends or metaphors, but there are also some that look more or less authentic.
Today, however, such human abilities have not 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 able to force wild rats to perform certain actions anywhere. This means that messages about such people can be safely considered fairy tales or metaphors.
Signs and myths associated with rat kings
The finding of the rat king has always been considered a bad omen among the people. From the Middle Ages, the belief has come down to us that the rat king brings illness and death to the house of the person who discovered him.
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, caused the plague pandemic, literally devastating some European countries and leading to the death of millions of people. The very fact of finding the rat king means both that there are too many rats in a particular place, and that they live in very difficult conditions.
Likewise, ancient dream books view dreaming rats entwined with tails as an omen of a serious illness.
In ancient mythology, it was also believed that the rat king found on the ship foreshadows the sinking of the ship itself. It is noteworthy that there are no reports (even unconfirmed ones) about the finds of the "kings" on the ships.
So we draw the final conclusion: the rat king is, most likely, an accident, during which animals freeze and get entangled in their tails, cannot move and get food, and as a result die of hunger. Because of the rarity of such a phenomenon, it seems to a person to be something supernatural, and because of the disgust that many people have for rats, bad omens and beliefs are associated with it.