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If you like action movies, you'll love videos taken by researchers on athletic kangaroo rats avoiding rattlesnake strikes. It looks like a cross between parkour and ninjutsu. Rats are able to jump, kick and twist to get out of danger.
A team of students from the University of California at Riverside, San Diego State University and the University of California at Davis set up high-speed cameras to see how desert kangaroo rats living in North America North reacted to rattlesnake attacks. The slow motion sequence is surprising.
"The resulting videos provide the first detailed look at the maneuvers that kangaroo rats use to defend themselves against a deadly predator," said the University of California Riverside.
Rats have long hind legs reminiscent of kangaroos. These tootsies are convenient for hitting rattlesnakes and raising rats away from strikes with impressive jumps.
The team found that even though rattlesnakes could strike and reach a rat in less than 100 milliseconds, their typical reaction time was about 70 milliseconds. This small margin is enough to not become dinner.
The researchers also found that some rats, which were not fast enough, could still avoid snakes by reorienting the mid-jump and kicking the reptiles. The professor of biology at San Diego State University, Rulon Clark, describes this as a "ninja style".
The researchers published Wednesday articles on their findings in the journal Functional Ecology and the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society.
For more information on these brave rodents, you can check out the group's NinjaRat website.
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