rat king?

[mr. piper]

had i not seen one of these in a photo, i might be forgiven for posting it under "HISTORY & MYTHS".i refer to a "RAT KING" or a "RAT CROWN". it is an apparently natural phenomenon (unless you can tell me otherwise) that finds a number of feral rats, i have seen 12, joined at the tip of their tails in a massive disorganised knot about one third of a rats body size, their tails are seemingly elongated twofold, so that the rats who can all face away from the knot as spokes of a wheel could move about fairly unencumbered. i have considered whether it is a hoax, all i know is that the hoax would have been created sometime well before it had reached the developement i had seen, as the tails had obviously grown "into" this state and the rats had lived with it. it may be that i am the fool of the moment but whilst it defies logic that it is naturally occurring, it is a fairly well known phenomenon, amongst rat folk- i kid ye not!!!! 

[Dom Tuk]

now you have got me all interested. do you have a link to the photo mr. piper.

[mr. piper]

sorry DOM TUK, the photo i saw was on a documentary on tv some years ago. it was a programme about rats and their habitats. this was if i remember, a rural thing, as in  not rats from sewers etc. love to help, in fact i would like to see the pic again myself. i have searched for it thru google to no avail. lets hope some of the AB stalwarts can sort it out. cheers

[5029]

I've seen pics of this

[PunkDaddy]

ftp://ftp.lspace.org/pub/pratchett/images/misc/ratking.jpg

[tpfan]

In Terry Pratchett's book "The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents" the theory is that this is the ratcatcher's guild "masterpiece" ie only an experienced ratcatcher would be able to cope with tying  a number of struggling rats together by their tails. Sounds feasible, think corn circles etc; plus could only be good for business!

[woofgang]

In the book's afterword, Mr Pratchett also says that in his opinion, this says more about the mental state of people with too much time on their hands than it does about a natural phnomenon or words to that effect