Rat king

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For other uses, see Rat king (disambiguation).
A rat king is a collection of rats whose tails are intertwined and
bound together by one of several possible mechanisms, such as
entangling material like hair or sticky substances like sap or gum
or getting tied together. Historically, this phenomenon is
particularly associated with Germany. There are several
specimens preserved in museums but very few instances of rat
kings have been observed in modern times.

A similar phenomenon with squirrels has been observed, which

has had modern documented examples.

In folklore, rat kings are associated with various superstitions and

were often seen as a bad omen, particularly associated with
plagues.

Rat king from Dellfeld, Germany, in the

Musée zoologique de la ville de
Strasbourg, France. Found in 1895.

Etymology and folklore

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,
[1] the king of rats right at the top." Later, the term referred to a king sitting on a throne of knotted tails.

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".

Historically, the rat king was viewed as a bad omen, most likely due to rats being considered carriers for
diseases such as the plague.

History
The earliest report of rat kings comes from 1564.[1] Most extant
examples are formed from black rats (Rattus rattus).[2]

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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 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 Rat king depicted in 16th-century
show formations of callus at the fractures of their tails, which suggests woodcut
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 were caught on video (and untangled to save the mice) near
Stavropol, Russia[8].[9][10][11][12]

On October 20, 2021, a live rat king of 13 rats was found in Põlvamaa, Estonia. This was the first live
specimen found. The rat king was brought to Tartu University and humanely euthanized because the rats
had no way of freeing themselves. Before that, scientists were able to film the alive rat king. The rat king
will be added to the Tartu University Museum of Zoology collection.[13][14]

Besides the Estonian specimen, post-2000, squirrel king instances have been reported. Found alive in
both cases, veterinarians had to separate them since they were potentially fatally stuck together else they
could starve or be eaten by a predator.[15] A "squirrel king" of six squirrels stuck together with pine sap
was also found in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada in June 2013.[16] In 2018 five juvenile grey squirrels
were found in Wisconsin, US. Some surrounding nest material, grass, and plastic got further entangled
with them.[17] The knot caused some tissue damage to their tails.[18]

Possible explanations
The existence of this phenomenon is debated due to the limited evidence of it occurring naturally. Another
concern is the possibility that some of the centuries-old preserved museum specimens could be
fabricated, such hoaxes being common in the medieval era.[15][19] 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 they sleep especially when rats live in proximity

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during winter. Once they realise they are bound, they would struggle and the knot would get tighter. 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][19] particularly if the temperatures rose or if they bit their
own or another one'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 of this
phenomenon would have most likely been done on dead rats, given how difficult this would be if the rats
were alive. Proper observation of the phenomenon, under scientific scrutiny, occurring naturally with live
rats from the start till the end, has yet to happen.[2] However, experts support it being cases of freak
accidents with well-observed instances of it occasionally happening to squirrels—also from 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.[15]

In popular culture

This article appears to contain trivial, minor, or unrelated references to popular culture.
Please reorganize this content to explain the subject's impact on popular culture, providing citations
to reliable, secondary sources, rather than simply listing appearances. Unsourced material may be
challenged and removed. (December 2020)

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
Rat king found in 1986 in Vendée
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".

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E. T. A. Hoffmann's The Nutcracker and the Mouse King features a
"Mouse King" (Mausekönig) with seven heads, seemingly inspired by
the multiple-bodied rat king. The character is typically 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 Mouse
King is also portrayed as a three-headed rat in Moscow Ballet's Rat king in the University of Tartu
production of The Great Russian Nutcracker. Natural History Museum was found
in 2005
The contemporary German artist Katharina Fritsch created
Rattenkönig, a large rat king sculpture in plaster in 1993 that was included in the Venice Biennale in
1999.

In the eleventh episode of the sixth season of Teen Wolf, "Said the Spider to the Fly", Liam Dunbar and
Mason Hewitt encounter a rat king. The sixth episode of the first season of 30 Rock, "Jack Meets
Dennis", Dennis Duffy claims to have seen a rat king. Later, Liz Lemon describes what her future with
Dennis would be like, becoming "more and more tangled up in each other's lives until [she] can't even get
away," and realizes that he is a metaphorical rat king. An episode of the NBC TV urban fantasy series
Grimm featured a monstrous, bipedal Rat King loose in Portland, formed by multiple 'Rienegen' (were-
rats) conjoining their body mass. An episode of the Netflix TV show Hilda, "The Nightmare Spirit,"
featured a large rat king with glowing red eyes made of an unknown number of rats. This character is a
peddler of secrets, willing to trade gossip with anyone who will tell him something worthy.

Rat King is also the name of an exotic sidearm in the video game Destiny 2.

The video game Kingdom of Loathing has a boss monster called the drunken rat king, which can only be
encountered if you increase the difficulty of the game via monster level modifiers. Upon defeat, it drops a
tangle of rat tails that can later be used against a tomb rat in order to fight a tomb rat king, which can
significantly speed up part of a quest.

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 current political and
social events.[20]

The Last of Us Part II

A creature known as the Rat King is featured in the 2020 action-adventure game The Last of Us Part II. It
is an amalgam of multiple infected humans which appears halfway through the plot, when protagonist
Abby explores the underground levels of a hospital in Seattle which were ground zero for the outbreak in
the city over 20 years before.[21]

Three actors were tied together to perform motion capture for the creature.[21][22] It was originally
supposed to appear in the game's predecessor, but the developers couldn't find a proper moment to
include it, so it was put aside.[21]

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In creating the Rat King and its boss fight, the team drew inspiration from 2016 game Inside, Neill
Blomkamp's 2017 short film Zygote, 2018 film Annihilation, 2018 game God of War and the third season
of Netflix series Stranger Things.[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."[21]

References
1. ^ Jump up to: a b c Hart, Martin (1982). Rats. Translated from 1973 Dutch edn by Arnold J.
Pomerans. Allison & Busby. pp. 66–67. ISBN 0-85031-297-3.
2. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Ossola, Alexandra (23 December 2016). "The Complicated, Inconclusive
Truth Behind Rat Kings". Atlas Obscura.
3. ^ "Rat King: Ship rat, Rattus rattus, VT2314". Otago Museum Collections. Retrieved 9 June 2007.
“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.”
4. ^ Schneider, M. "De rattenkoning van Rucphen". Museumkennis. Rucphen. Archived from the
original on 13 December 2007. Retrieved 2 June 2017.
5. ^ Miljutin A (2007). "Rat kings in Estonia" (PDF). Proc. Estonian Acad. Sci. Biol. Ecol. 56 (1): 77–81.
6. ^ Süldre, Lauraliis: Tartu Ülikooli loodusmuuseumi jõudis üliharuldane rotikuningas. Eesti
Rahvusringhääling 20 October 2021 (in Estonian).
7. ^ delfi.ee (21 November 2021). "Põlvamaalt elusana leitud üliharuldane rotikuningas uinutati ning
jääb teadlastele uurimiseks". the Delfi (in Estonian). Retrieved 21 October 2021.
8. ^ McDonald, Alyssa (11 June 2013). "Photos: Regina squirrels tangled by sticky situation". Metro
News. Archived from the original on 25 November 2017. Retrieved 14 June 2013.
9. ^ Pinarski, Phil (14 September 2018). "That's nuts! Five squirrels tied together by tails freed by
Wisconsin Humane Society". Retrieved 14 September 2018.
10. ^ Guardian Staff (17 September 2018). "A tale of five squirrels: vets untangle 'Gordian Knot' of
rodents". the Guardian. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
11. ^ Jump up to: a b Hignett, Katherine (17 September 2018). "Vets have untied a bundle of squirrels
tangled by their tails in Wisconsin". Newsweek.
12. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Avard, Alex (16 October 2020). "The making of a Rat King: How Naughty Dog
created its scariest foe in The Last of Us Part 2". GamesRadar+. Future US. Retrieved 20 March
2021.
13. ^ Cryer, Hirun (10 July 2020). "The Last of Us Part 2 Tied Three Actors Together to Motion Capture
The Rat King". USGamer. Reed Exhibitions. Retrieved 20 March 2021.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rat Kings.

(in French) Photo and X-ray of rat king in the Museum of Nantes

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