Rats Snatching Bats Out of the Air and Eating Them–Researchers Got It on Video

Summary

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 Bat? Meet rat. Scientists recorded brown rats snatching bats from the air and eating them. Gloza-Rausch et al., Global Ecology and Conservation, 2025 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. Some of the rats stood on their hind legs to snatch bats out of the air. Gloza-Rausch et al., Global Ecology and Conservation, 2025 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 ...