RAT KING
Updated 04-May-2020.
Mondo shtuff from around the internet, all about RAT KING!
Six Baby Squirrels With Tails Hopelessly Tangled Together Rescued in Nebraska: Ever heard of a “rat king”? As urban legend tells us, that’s what happens when the tails of rats get knotted together. Well, apparently the same thing can happen to squirrels, as the startled residents of a Nebraska town learned last week.
An (Almost) Comprehensive History of Rat Kings: Myth, hoax, or Mother Nature’s freak accident? Here’s the story of nearly every rat king ever discovered.
The Complicated, Inconclusive Truth Behind Rat Kings: They’ve been mythologized for centuries.
My botty best at summarizing from Wikipedia: a rat king is a collection of rats whose tails are intertwined and bound together . Historically, this alleged phenomenon is particularly associated with Germany . there are several specimens preserved in museums the rat king was viewed as a bad omen, most likely due to rats being carriers for diseases such as the plague . most extant examples are formed from black rats (Rattus rattus the largest well-known mummified “rat king” was found in 1828 in a miller’s fireplace at Buchheim . alcohol-preserved rats are shown in museums in Hamburg, Göttingen, x-ray images show formations of callus at the fractures of their tails . this suggests that the animals survived for an extended period of time tangled . sightings of the phenomenon, especially where the animals the existence of this phenomenon is debated due to the limited evidence of it occurring naturally . the knot caused tissue damage to their tails . hoaxes were common in the medieval era . the long flexible tail of the black rat could be exposed to sticky or frozen substances . this mixture acts as a bonding agent and may solidify as they sleep . most cases were found during winter and in confined spaces “black rats do clutter together during winters for warmth . it could be remotely possible for it to be naturally-occurring . the rats would barely be able to survive in such a condition for a long time the phenomenon occurs naturally with live rats from the start till the end . experts support it being cases of freak accidents with well-observed instances of it happening to squirrels . a 2007 study concluded that the phenomenon is possible but author: “down the ages, some cruel and inventive people have had altogether too much time on their hands” “mouse king” (Mausekönig) with multiple heads, apparently inspired by rat king “Mouse King” is a rat-king like creature formed from teeming mass of small mice . the mouse is also portrayed as a three-headed rat in the great Russian nut an episode of NBC’s urban fantasy series Grimm featured a monstrous, bipedal Rat King . another episode of the Netflix TV show Hilda featured an unidentified number of rats . this character is