Rats Are Snatching Bats Out of the Air and Eating Them—and Researchers Got It on Video Rodents in northern Germany were spotted using two different hunting strategies at major urban bat hibernation sites Sarah Kuta - Daily Correspondent Get our newsletter! Get our newsletter!
Rats have gotten a bad reputation over the years for being dirty, garbage-eating carriers of disease. But these ubiquitous rodents are also clever and capable of learning complex tasks, even using their imaginations to navigate in virtual reality.
Now, new research adds another odd skill to their résumés: hunting bats. In a new study published in the journal Global Ecology and Conservation, scientists describe the first-ever observations of brown rats snatching bats out of the air, then chowing down.
The novel behavior is a “remarkable” example of the rodents’ ability to make the most of their environment, the researchers write.
But it may also spell bad news: The two species could be exchanging pathogens—interactions that could eventually trickle down to affect human health—and the rats, which are not native to Germany, might be killing enough bats to harm the local populations.
“Our observations show how adaptable and skillful [brown] rats are in exploiting food resources in urban ecosystems, while highlighting a conservation issue linked to invasive mammals,” says lead author Florian Gloza-Rausch, a biologist at the Museum of Natural History in Berlin, in a statement. “To our knowledge, this type of rat behavior has not previously been documented scientifically.”
Did you know? How rats help historians learn about the past Rats are good at improvising their nests almost anywhere, and they love making off with humans’ trinkets and garbage. This annoyance to homeowners is sometimes a boon to historians: Researchers have used rat middens and caches to yield Rats are good at improvising their nests almost anywhere, and they love making off with humans’ trinkets and garbage. This annoyance to homeowners is sometimes a boon to historians: Researchers have used rat middens and caches to yield insight into the lives of enslaved people in the antebellum South.
For the study, researchers focused on two major urban bat hibernation sites in northern Germany—one in the town of Bad Segeberg and the other in Lüneburg. The Bad Segeberg site, a cave located near a busy open-air theater, is used as a winter roost by more than 30,000 bats, mainly Daubenton’s bats (Myotis daubentonii) and Natterer’s bats (Myotis nattereri). The Lüneburg site, situated in a city park, consists of rock crevices used in the late summer and fall by swarms of Daubenton’s and Natterer’s bats, along with a handful of other Myotis species.
Scientists used infrared cameras and thermal imaging devices to investigate the sites during periods of high bat activity between 2020 and 2024. At the Bad Segeberg site, the camera captured crystal-clear footage of brown rats (Rattus norvegicus) hunting bats. They used two distinct strategies: Some of the rodents snuck up on stationary bats that had landed or were resting, while others pounced on bats as they flew through the air.
“Rats were frequently observed patrolling the landing platform at the cave entrance,” the researchers write in the paper. “They were standing upright on their hind legs, using their tails for balance and raising their forelegs to intercept flying bats. Individuals were documented capturing bats mid-air, killing them immediately with a bite and dragging them away.”
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