In a wildlife park in China, a gang of monkeys teaches a cocky rat that had been stealing their food a lesson. A visitor's video shows the monkeys flushing out the rat as it tries to hide under the food dish.
Many monkey species are known to be aggressive but the recent viral video shows what these primates can do when triggered. Other monkeys have even learned to eat rats as part of their diet.
Monkeys Taught A Rat A Lesson For Trying to Steal Its Food
A gang of irate monkeys was captured on camera murdering a rat in their enclosure within a zoo in Quzhou, China's Zhejiang province for stealing their meal.
The video posted online shows a daring rat stealing food from a jar in the midst of the primate enclosure, Daily Star reported. The monkeys, however, notice the effort and, as it makes a dart from beneath the container, they chase it down before one of them grips it.
It then tosses it about by its tail, perhaps to confuse it, before hitting its head against the rocks and ultimately drowning it in the waterhole. With no way out, the rat acts dead, but the monkey retaliates by lifting it up and dumping it into the water again.
The monkey prods the rat to test if it is still alive. However, the quick-witted rat plays possum and flees into a tiny hole in the rocks just as the monkey loses its grasp.
The video was recorded by a woman named Mrs. Dong using her phone who was visiting the zoo. She said that she had seen rats before and had always thought that they were not upsetting the monkeys, which is why she did not anticipate the rodents to be beaten by the primates.
Perhaps the monkeys were not pleased with the rat taking their food. Some observers commented that the monkey was smart enough to try to drown the rat. Meanwhile, another added that the rat deserved the vengeance of the monkeys and that it looked like the real-life Planet of the Apes.
Rat-Eating Monkeys in Malaysia
In 2019, New York Post reported killer monkeys catching and gobbling up large rats in Malaysia. Rats were considered a pest in the plantation, damaging around 10% of palm oil crops by eating their fruit. Scientists were also stunned of discovering that rat-catching macaques on palm oil plantations who were hungry could act as a natural pest control.
These monkeys were known to consume mostly fruit, only sometimes pursuing meaty food but usually tiny lizards and birds. Scientists have now proven that these monkeys are grabbing and swallowing huge rodents on a daily basis.
Nadine Ruppert, of the Universiti Sains Malaysia, wrote in her research, titled "Macaques Can Contribute To Greener Practices in Oil Palm Plantations When Used as Biological Pest Control" published in the scientific journal Current Biology, how stunned she was when they discovered that macaques feed on rats in plantations.
They tracked the macaques between January 2016 and September 2018 in plantations in the Segari Melintang forest reserve. On average, 44 monkeys can kill about 3,000 rats per year, or equivalent to 70% of rats per monkey over the course of the year. They would hunt rats residing inside the trees, which makes the rodents easy prey.
RELATED ARTICLE: Killer Monkey Throws Off 4-Month-Old Baby From the Roof of a 3-Story House in India
Check out more news and information on Monkeys in Science Times.
