The kangaroo rat now christened "Ninja" rat, kicks rattlesnake to the head in the air faster than the blink of an eye to evade capture! -- This comes evident after high-speed cameras placed in a common hunting and feeding area captured one incidence involving a Kangaroo rat that dramatically managed to escape from imminent death on the jaws of a rattlesnake.
The wide-eyed Kangaroo rat which is known to inhabit desert areas of the environment relies on a secret trick to evade possible strikes from predatory snakes. Indeed, the seemingly defenseless rat somehow remained a mystery to researchers. For many years, researchers have been trying to understand how the small and weak rat has been able to survive attacks from one of the swiftest predators, the rattlesnake.
Now, according to a student-led research team from the University of California Riverside (UCR), has proven that the size of the rat doesn't mean anything with regards to its survival. The team used high-speed cameras that were placed in common hunting and feeding areas of the desert. The cameras were able to record all the events that culminated to the final escape of the rodent from the claws of death.
The high-speed cameras were able to reveal to the researchers a startling discovery. The rodent was able to foil attacks from the rattlesnake not just through evasive and turning leaps, but also served the predator a ninja-style kick to scuttle oncoming attempts to capture it. This turn of events left the serpent biting nothing but just the dust as the rat swiftly jumped up high into the air.
Rulon Clarke, an associate professor of Biology at the San Diego State University, said, "Perhaps in the most surprising finding of our research, Kangaroo rats that did not react quickly enough to avoid the strike had another trick up their sleeves." Rulon went further, "They often were able to avoid being envenomated by reorienting themselves in mid-air using their massive haunches and feet to kick the snakes away, ninja-style."
According to one astounding discovery the researchers made, the reaction time for the rat was just too short than even the blink of an eye, which is known to last around 150 milliseconds. So, while the snakes were able to launch their attacks from a state of absolute stillness to reach their prey in less than 100 milliseconds, they could not much the rapid swiftness of the rodents. The Kangaroo rodents, the research has revealed, are able to react in less than 70 milliseconds. In other instances, the rats even initiated jumps in just 38 milliseconds of a snake launching its strike.
The research is expected to be published in Functional Ecology and the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society to help give some insights to the behaviors and biomechanics of the rats and the rattlesnakes.
