Talk:Rat king

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Myth?[edit]

In the German Wikipedia there is ongoing discussion if rat kings do actually exist, or if they are just a hoax. An editor is claiming that all examples of rat kings are artificially constructed, i.e. forgeries. I searched in literature and internet, but I neither found evidence nor counterevidence of the existence of rat kings. The following arguments are raised by the sceptics:

  • Rats are cleanly animals, so it is unlikely that they stick together by blood and dirt
  • All exhibits in museums are very old, mostly from the 17th and 18th century, and no scientific analysis of the finds was made
  • Today thousands of rats are kept and watched in scientific labs, and never a rat king was observed

Does anyone here know about the credibility of the rat king stories? Thanks -- Baldhur 13:45, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think your chances of dissecting one of these exhibits is low, and the chance of a new occurrence of the phenomenon even lower. I don't see any reason not to just label the whole phenomenon an old wives' tale. It's just a jackalope whose origins are a little more shrouded in the dust of history. --Yath 21:37, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
What I know about rat kings comes from Terry Pratchett's The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents - a fictional story of course, but Pratchett researches his information very well, and it is clear that they are mythological creations invented by man, not real. I'd recommend rewording the article a bit, and adding it to Category:Fictional species - MPF 08:52, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Well, it is not that clear. In Grzimek's Animal Encyclopedia they are treated as an unproved but possible phenomenon (though my edition is an old one from the 1970s). In Walker's Mammals of the World rat kings are not mentioned at all. Hence the question is, if Grzimek is in error. I sent e-mails to a zoologist at the Frankfurt University and to the Altenburg museum (which keeps an exhibit of a rat king). I hope that one of them will reply, and I'll tell you as soon as I get an answer. If anyone here has access to literature besides Terry Pratchett, I would be glad to hear about it.
Thanks for your answers so far. -- Baldhur 10:58, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
It is possible that they are connected upon being wounded and entangled. According to observations by Robert Langer and Joseph Vacanti, rats posses the capacity to preserve human organs such as ears with the use of their own circulation.
Yes, but only if the tissue has been grafted on, like most animals. I can't conceive of a way this would happen spontaneously. 144.136.44.182 00:39, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
FYI, there is another preserved example of a rat king in the Otago Museum, Dunedin, New Zealand. From memory, I believe it was a bunch of baby rats whose tails had grown together. If anyone local wants to check it out, it's in the 'Animal Atttic'.Topatientlyexplain 07:40, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Check the Estonian paper. Also see the X-rays. These things are either not manufactured, or were manufactured with the rats still being alive (fat chance...). The Estonian paper notes that almost all reports and all specimens are a) Rattus rattus and b) come from cold-temperate regions. It proposes that the tails become tangled initially either by nesting material (such as horse hair, see the Rucphen case) or by freezing muck (the 2005 Estonian case), and that the rats are tied together by their attempts to escape. The argument of rats' comfort behavior holds no water - of course the rats would try to get themselves unstuck, but if they cannot, they simply cannot.
This is not a common phenomenon. It is likely that few observed cases were unreported, especially in modern times, yet black rats are common animals. A roundabout hoax theory can be dismissed I think, because the material evidence in at least 2 cases, probably more, disagrees. This does not mean that "rat kings" have not been fabricated as a curio of course. But not all known specimens are fabricated. Dysmorodrepanis 14:03, 16 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Rat kings are definitely not a myth. Most recent discoveries of rat kings come from Netherlands (1963.), France (1987.) and Estonia (2005.). Also, one Dutch scientific work from 1965. describes experiments in which tails of two rats were glued together on some parts. Two rats were then placed in a cage with other rats, confused and forced to shove one above other, after a while they got first lab bred king rat. Same experiments were then conducted on Rattus norwegicus (today most common on "street") but with no success because they were in rage with their situation and have bitten each other to death. That could be the reason why King rats are not found in these species, but also the reason of so few recent discoveries.
Also, physicist Jens Eggers and his colleagues from Bristol university in 2006. published their work "Knotting probability of a shaken ball-chain" in which they wrote two conclusions which could explain Rat king phenomenon. Fist, cables will knot themselves only if they are long enough, about 15cm, which could explain Rat kings being found only in long tailed species. Second, knots will appear from few seconds or few minutes of strong shaking. So it could be enough for some fuss among bunch of rats for them to become entangled without any glue or other substances (blood, spit...) Folklore tag needs to be removed, there are enough evidences of them to be accepted as phenomenon whether explainable or not. TRyujin (talk) 12:01, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, and I've removed the tag accordingly. The (well-documented, photographed, expert-verified) report of the "Squirrel King" in Regina in 2014 (see footnote 5) is yet more reason to consider these historical reports to be credible. Moreover, with multiple lab-studied samples housed in museums around the world, I don't understand why the "folklore" tag was added in the first place. Presuming all evidence to be fraudulent or fabricated is a positive claim that itself needs to be sourced.Eunomiac (talk) 23:38, 27 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
EDIT: Or I would have, if I knew how to re-title a Wikipedia article. Suffice it to say, the "(folklore)" tag has no business being in the title of this article, and should be removed by whomever knows how.Eunomiac (talk) 23:40, 27 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's too much indentation for me. Anyway, if we believe Maarten 't Hart, the research (and I use that word with licence) was conducted by a certain Wierts in 1966 (I haven't found the paper) and it showed that rats, regardless of species, can braid themselves together if their tails are glued together. This could form an argument in the debate in two ways:

  1. These occur naturally. Several things must still be explained however; I won't expand on that here to avoid repeating myself later.
  2. These are easy to create as pranks, e.g. by catching and restraining some rats and tying their tails together with horsehair or straw. But weren't people afraid to touch rats? I don't know, but I've eaten a worm as a kid just to freak people out.

The occurrence of rat kings is restricted more by national boundaries than by the rat's range.

  1. It could be that environmental conditions are more likely to form rat kings in Germany. This doesn't explain why their relatively rarer in Holland, Belgium, Denmark and northern France, where the climate is similar.
  2. It could be that in a country that loves fake animals of all kinds, rat kings are more likely to be produced artificially.

Rat kings are rarer now than they used to be.

  1. Maybe people are less gullible now? Or less cruel?
  2. Maybe for some reason brown rats aren't as likely to get tied up. This contradicts what you'd expect from the 1966 experiment and from observed behavior. But it's a possibility.

The randomly shaken ball-chain argument doesn't really work for rats because rat tails aren't disembodied and don't move randomly. There's a heavy and wide object attached on one end that prevents knotting from that direction and the whole also tends to move in that direction, preventing knotting. To get rat's tails tied up they have to display very specific behavior where they jump over the centre and braid their tails together. Do they do this when their tails aren't joined? Not that I know of. Would it still braid the tails? I'm guessing not, but I don't really know of course. All I know is that in the lab only artificial rat kings have been demonstrated.

The squirrel kings I've seen on the internet were all caused by resin acting as glue which by itself is enough to stick tails together without requiring knots or braids. So these are easy to accept.

A summary with a bit of opinion: I personally would be very interested to see if the tails of extant specimens show evidence of braiding rather than knotting, although that can't distinguish between natural causes and some artificial methods. To be natural, there would have to be an extremely unlikely cause, only applicable to black rats and tied to the climatic conditions in Germany specifically. I think however that the preponderance of evidence points to hoaxing, a thought that is spurred on by the knowledge that people had good motives to pull these pranks and that all examples I know about are of really dubious provenance. And who knows, maybe one or two were real and provided the inspiration. But I don't think one or two instances make a phenomenon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.82.47 (talk) 16:28, 3 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We have cited evidence in the form of extant specimens and credible sources---enough to make "it's just folklore" a positive claim that needs to be sourced. There is no reason to suggest rat kings are mythological in the face of tangible evidence. (I'd remove "(folklore)" from the title of this article myself, but as I mentioned above, I don't know how.) --- Eunomiac (talk) 23:48, 27 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Fictional Character[edit]

Wow, two things this article seems to very obviously be missing are A. Reference to the Rat King from the 80s TMNT cartoon B. Any attempt at etymology, I mean.. .rat -king-? Why are a bunch of stuck-together-rats a king? German word I'm not aware of? The article briefly mentions one explanation that is false, but that's all.

It isn't obvious to me. Why don't you put the cartoon reference in the article. --Yath 21:23, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I notice that since this comment (and the accompanying paragraph in the article) was created, a disambig link has appeared to the article on the fictional character. Given that, is a paragraph on the fictional character still appropriate for this article, or would a single sentence (like other the fictional appearances mentioned in the article) be more appropriate? 156.34.221.174 14:45, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have a sorce for this, but I think in folk lore rat kings have mind control over normal rats. That's how they get the rat peasants to feed it. OrdoAbChao 07:08, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

External Link[edit]

Removed the Scientific American link because it had nothing to do with rat kings whatsoever. Soonercary 06:00, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

only half of the article shows up[edit]

Even on preview. --HanzoHattori 22:33, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Someone forgot to close a ref tag, so everything after the tag wasn't being rendered. This should be fixed now... --Starwed 03:31, 16 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Citation for date found[edit]

The 1564 date quoted in the article that says "citation needed" can be found in Martin Hart's "Rats" on page 67 in the chapter on Rat Kings. Published by Allison & Busby, 1982. English translation by Arnold Pomerans. ISBN 0-85031-297-3.

The date refers to an illustration by Johannes Sambucus that accompanied a poem describing seven rats tied together.

I can't quite figure out how to format the citation correctly. Fenrislorsrai 22:46, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I put in the citation you suggested after physically verifying it with my library's copy of Hart's book. I changed the page number to "66" as being the first instance in the book where Hart states "The first to depict a rat king was Johannes Sambucus ..." Nice citation find! --Quartermaster (talk) 00:43, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Writing style[edit]

What does "seek their own comfort" mean? Please use plain english and avoid euphimisms or idiomatic constructs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.127.95.196 (talk • contribs) 16:24, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Article move (2008)[edit]

Why was this moved from "Rat king" to "Rat King (Cryptid)"? The only rationale in the edit summary is the adjective "Grammatical", but capitalising something which remains uncapitalised throughout the article seems to go against MOS:TITLE, and I'm not sure why this article was chosen to gain the cryptic "Cryptid" category, while the minor Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles villain gets to take the default unbracketed page.

Any support or feedback on moving this article back to "Rat king" and moving the cartoon villain to "Rat King (TMNT)"? --McGeddon (talk) 17:52, 11 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have to agree with that, how on earth is a goddamned cartoon character the "main" artice? 111.97.175.172 (talk) 17:30, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The "minor" Rat King villain is a lot more famous than the cryptid, and it's tremendously more likely someone searing for the Rat King is searching for the cartoon character. 76.28.193.166 (talk) 02:46, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not familiar with the show, but the article suggests that he's a minor villain who hasn't appeared much since the 1980s cartoon. The two articles seem about evenly split in the number of other articles that link to them, and a quick Google search shows the wider Internet to be mentioning the two contexts more or less equally - there's no "tremendously more likely" to either of them. --McGeddon (talk) 08:48, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
He was a cartoon villain seen by millions of living people around the world in the late '80s (and later in reruns, videos games, comics, etc.) The clump of rats has been (allegedly) seen by a relative handful of dead people (who don't use Wikipedia). I don't really care if the villain is or isn't treated as the primary topic here, but he undoubtedly should be. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:05, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]


In the meantime I moved this to "Rat king (folklore)" because cryptid is a loaded description and one associated with rather nutty people. I think this should be moved back to just plain old "Rat king" as the TMNT character is a proper name and would be "Rat King" (with a capital K). Captials make different article spaces. DreamGuy (talk) 23:30, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dungeons and Dragons[edit]

Gaining an interest when watching the 30 Rock episode referred to in the popular culture section, I noticed how the article fails to mention the instances of the roleplaying game Dungeons and Dragons that utilizes the folkloric Rat King to signify an increase in awareness among a collective of rats.

One being a general mention of what Dungeons and Dragons refers to as "Cranium Rat", being a collective of rats the number of which determines the overall intelligence of the community, although sans the intertwined tails.

A more obvious mentioning occurs in the computer game Planescape: Torment, wherein a large collective of supposed Cranium Rats called "Many as One" appears, showing itself as a collective of roughly a thousand rats intertwined by uncertain means, yet presenting itself as a large mass of rats.

Also, an initial quest in the computer game Fallout 2 features a Rat King, functioning as the cause of a local town's rat infestation. This, however, is revealed to be simply a very large, naked rat.

I have refrained from adding any of this to the popular culture section, feeling that I am uncertain of how to approach the folkloric aspects of it, seeing how these instances at least in some regard have moved beyond the more zoologically interesting matter of the phenomenon. Perhaps a distinction between "folklore" and "zoology" would benefit the article? (November 2008) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.243.190.31 (talk) 22:00, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pop culture trivia[edit]

It's been removed. Simple, obvious appearances do not merit mention in this article. The place for this information is in the various articles about the primary fictional works. Mintrick (talk) 00:30, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Mintrick. It's not a matter of sourcing as DGG and Casliber state in their edit summaries. It's just that appearances of the "this thing appears in this work" flavor aren't worth mentioning and actually detract from the article. Doctorfluffy (wanna get fluffed?) 04:07, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know enough about editorial decisions, but I think the fact that Rat Kings are mentioned several times on 30 Rock ought to be added.

Came here to say that 30 Rock should be added to the popular culture section. It's where I first heard of them, so I think it's relevant! 66.57.31.184 (talk) 12:22, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Add 30 Rock! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.142.168.140 (talk) 15:57, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Conjoined?[edit]

I was wondering if it is likely that some of these might be conjoined (siamese) twins, triplets etc. It's an interesting possibility.

My own take on this, is that they were an ill omen in the sense of the rat population becoming so large in an area, and so well fed that these kind of freaks could survive.--MacRusgail (talk) 11:45, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

King Rat[edit]

I know another meaning for "king rat", which is quite different. It refers to an extra large rat, which is said to lead the other rats into new territories. It's supposed to be about two/three times the size of the others. I have seen one or two very large rats in England, so they're certainly about.-11:51, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

That's an important point, relevant to an edit I just made. I removed this passage:

The rat king appears in novels such as China Miéville's King Rat, The Tale of One Bad Rat by Bryan Talbot, Ratking by Michael Dibdin, Peeps by Scott Westerfeld, The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray by Chris Wooding, and Rats and Gargoyles by Mary Gentle, Luther: The Calling by Neil Cross and The Rats by James Herbert.

The reason being, I just read the first of these books ("King Rat"), and there is, indeed, a fictional "king rat" in that book, but it is NOT a "rat king" in the sense of the topic under discussion here. So I'm strongly inclined to doubt the other items as well. There seem to be plenty of other better-grounded references in the "pop culture" section as is. Arided (talk) 18:38, 22 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

User:Oknazevad added that text back in, saying that it wasn't appropriate to remove the references without disconfirming them. I don't want struggle over this, though I'll note that the whole sentence is unsourced (and could just be as made up as the connection about King Rat). I added a "citation needed" tag. Arided (talk) 23:51, 23 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Photographic evidence of a modern 'rat' king[edit]

Via reddit submission: http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/ztssu/my_coworker_sent_an_email_saying_he_would_be_late/, the image http://i.imgur.com/vrAYi.jpg shows five live squirrels with tails knotted together. Although the process that created the "Squirrel King" was artificial (a mishap with christmas light strand), the product is strikingly similar to the folkloric rat king.

Contextual description follows: "5 young squirrels got tangled in Christmas lights in my neighbor’s yard. We got the lights off, but now their tails are one big knot..." 74.121.38.141 (talk) 18:40, 13 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Squirrel king formation[edit]

Squirrel king formation Irish Melkite (talk) 04:59, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And a series of photos of the disengagement is here Irish Melkite (talk) 05:03, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Fact vs folklore[edit]

I could not decisively determine (in parts of the article) whether the rat king is something that happens in real life or if it is something in a story or if it is cryptic. --Mr. Guye (talk) 15:56, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Then clearly you did not read very carefully. The title of this article is in error, as rat kings do exists (see the page sources for real-world examples). That said, there has been a lot of folklore built up about them over the centuries, which is a big part of why researchers have always been skeptical about them and dismissed them as hoaxes until the most recent finds (including a squirrel king) have largely convinced people of their reality. The article makes this pretty clear, and the tag is unneeded. But so is a page move. oknazevad (talk) 16:05, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Similar case in squirrels[edit]

Just wondering if it's creating a section for squirrel kings? Another example.. [1] AprilHare (talk) 14:39, 17 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 29 April 2016[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: All three moved. There seems to be consensus that this is a primary topic for both Rat king and Rat King.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:06, 10 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]


– The phenomenon described in this article is a real, if very rare, occurance, so the (folklore) disambiguator is outright incorrect. It's also unneeded, as the TMNT character is not the primary meaning by any means. Besides being fairly obscure to the general public (he's hardly The Shredder), there's also the long-term significance issue. The TMNT character has been around since 1988; the real phenomenon has, conceivably, been around as long as there's been rats, and observed since at least the medieval period. Yes, there was a lot of skepticism due to the rarity of the condition and the folklore about them, but the recent discoveries already noted in the article have lead to an acknowledgement that rat kings do exists, and are not made up folklore or pseudoscientific cryptids.. The current name is just wrong. oknazevad (talk) 16:35, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose I see no reason to delete the disambiguation page and merge it into a massive hatnote onto this article -- 70.51.46.195 (talk) 07:45, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. My bad, got thrown off by the use of an INTDABLINK. I am not in any way proposing the deletion of the disambiguation page, I just didn't realize that it wasn't already at rat king (disambiguation). I've amended the move request to include it. (No massive hatnote needed, just a "for other uses" one. oknazevad (talk) 13:59, 30 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support all of the proposed moves per nom. —  AjaxSmack  06:07, 1 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support all 3 moves. Recent evidence shows this strange phenomenon is quite real, if rare. It will just confuse people if "folklore" is kept in the title.Valli Nagy 23:20, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Partial support - I think it's fine for Rat King to stay at that title, per WP:DIFFCAPS. --McGeddon (talk) 08:28, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • See, it strikes me as a perfect example of the second part of WP:DIFFCAPS, the part beginning with "However...". In this case, the ability to use a disambiguator consistent with other TMNT articles is an easy way to avoid any ambiguity and potential confusion, in line with that paragraph and it's examples. oknazevad (talk) 13:16, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Factual accuracy[edit]

I'm going to reword this article's lead section due to stuff being simply unsourced, per WP:EXCEPTIONAL. Offending statement: "....but there are several well-attested modern occurrences" and also striking down the rest of it since it isn't on par with the article body. WP:LEAD.

I've looked at the sources given and machine-translated the non-English ones for all it's worth. Also read the old 2004 talk page discussion "#Myth?" and #Requested move 29 April 2016. While there's some evidence that it isn't complete folklore, currently, the wording really misleads the reader. What it doesn't mention is how the specimens found themselves could be fabricated and what little support for their existence..is what it is...little support; the lead section's tone conveys the opposite message to the reader. The little support comes from the Estonian study and that too, offers more explanation. All of this can be added and is missing in the article.

I've found newer sources which are, while not scientific refs per se, they do shed light on this and support what I just mentioned. They are still better, more accessible than the given refs which are mostly consisting of museum pages. Per WP:BURDEN and WP:EXCEPTIONAL, the onus of finding the sources supporting it otherwise now lies on any editor who contests this change.

Honestly, I don't mind any editor going fully WP:BOLD and clearing this article. But yes, all in all, I do see why the previous discussion and requested move concluded to remove the "folklore" part and not outrightly brand this page as a hoax, which I suspected at first. Ugog Nizdast (talk) 21:09, 17 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Done it, see it here. Ugog Nizdast (talk) 21:30, 17 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I've updated it further here with the serious but concise addition of how plausible it is using the above refs. Ugog Nizdast (talk) 19:38, 20 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

TODO:

  • Expand lead in par with the body of the article, per WP:LEADLENGTH. Especially go into detail but concisely explain the not-so-simple fact of its plausibility.
  • Would be great if Hart, Martin (1982). Rats. Translated from 1973 Dutch edn by Arnold J. Pomerans. Allison & Busby. p. 66–7. ISBN 0-85031-297-3. could be accessed. Seems to be one of the few books devoted to the topic.
    • Additionally, the Mental Floss source via Hart's book has documented all the known found cases which we seem to have a good collection of images at the Commons. Addition of those images, with each case identified along with detailed captions would be great.
    • Add more details to the images of each rat king case's captions present here too per this source.

Ugog Nizdast (talk) 17:41, 3 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The paper 'Rat kings in Estonia' too may contain information to expand on. The other sources do mention it if I recall. Ugog Nizdast (talk) 17:44, 3 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Possible evidence[edit]

Recently, a video was uploaded to Tiktok which seems to show a rat king. Link - I have no info about veracity.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.77.222.238 (talk • contribs) 12:32, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

can someone add this[edit]

there is an indie fishing game called dredge and they have a "anchovy king" WinRar40 (talk) 10:01, 30 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Rat king (folklore" listed at Redirects for discussion[edit]

The redirect Rat king (folklore has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 February 14 § Rat king (folklore until a consensus is reached. Utopes (talk / cont) 01:36, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Rat_king&oldid=1209972800"