Real Rat Kings

SolidusRaccoon · Post by **SolidusRaccoon** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 9:20 pm

Here we go.

ftp://ftp.lspace.org/pub/pratchett/imag ... atking.jpg

and the XRAY

ftp://ftp.lspace.org/pub/pratchett/imag ... tkxray.jpg

Astral · Post by **Astral** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 12:23 am

Wow, sceary!

EvilJayson · Post by **EvilJayson** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 2:36 am

Hay RH could you tell us what was your insperation on creating the rat king? i mean did you think it up on your own or is it a real legant that you have heard about?

If its just some monster that you have thought up then thouse links(if real and they problily are) prove that reality is grenraly stranger than fiction.

-Jayson

Astral · Post by **Astral** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 6:16 am

I suspect that its like the nighterrors; baced on a real life phonoamon, except ten times worce

Maxgoof · Post by **Maxgoof** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 7:31 am

Dear Lord, they actually EXIST???

Astral · Post by **Astral** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 7:43 am

What? The night-terrors? Or the rat king?

Sophieblue · Post by **Sophieblue** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 8:42 am

Terry Pratchett: The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents. A delightful takeoff on the Pied Piper story, and a real page-turner.

SolidusRaccoon · Post by **SolidusRaccoon** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 9:09 am

maxgoof wrote:Dear Lord, they actually EXIST???

Be afraid, be very afraid.

RHJunior · Post by **RHJunior** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 1:36 pm

I never read Terry Pratchett's book with the rats.

I first read mention of them in a graphic novel called "the tale of one bad rat." Curious, I did a websearch, and concluded they were prime material for a mythical monster.

Anthony Lion · Post by **Anthony Lion** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 4:08 pm

Never read it?

Shame on you!

Next you'll be telling us that you don't have Nanny Ogg's cookbook, the maps or the A to Z, either...

Mad Mike · Post by **Mad Mike** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 6:40 pm

Very interesting...

I am rather surprised, though. Given that a wild animal will literally chew off its own leg to escape a trap, I would expect that the rats would bite off their own tails (or someone else's, anyway) to escape this. The only reason I can think of that they wouldn't is that if this happens when they are very young, then they grow up used to the restriction.

DracoDei · Post by **DracoDei** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 6:58 pm

I am not sure whether to beleive this... the rats could be dead (IE photo faked)... you never know on the 'net. I will look some time when I have time. I wonder about immune rejection. The only way this would work is if rat biology is much different than human I would think... Aren't siamese twins in humans always identical?

Dapple · Post by **Dapple** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 7:05 pm

That is really intersting, wish I wasn't eating when I saw it.

SolidusRaccoon · Post by **SolidusRaccoon** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 7:15 pm

DracoDei wrote:I am not sure whether to beleive this... the rats could be dead (IE photo faked)... you never know on the 'net. I will look some time when I have time. I wonder about immune rejection. The only way this would work is if rat biology is much different than human I would think... Aren't siamese twins in humans always identical?

I have seen other documented sources, trust me. These things are real.

KeeCoyote · Post by **KeeCoyote** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 2:30 pm

Believe it or not . this happens to squirels to.

SolidusRaccoon · Post by **SolidusRaccoon** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 4:11 pm

KeeCoyote wrote:Believe it or not . this happens to squirels to.

you got that right.

BBlalock · Post by **BBlalock** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 5:38 pm

SolidusRaccoon wrote:
KeeCoyote wrote:Believe it or not . this happens to squirels to.
you got that right.

Somehow an army of squirrel-wights is less than terror inspiring.

Well, until they go after your nuts.

Garbled · Post by **Garbled** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 6:14 pm

Except that Squirrels are better climbers. And they're not stereotypically felinaphobic.

TinklePit · Post by **TinklePit** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 6:32 pm

I just got off the phone with my sister, the lab tech, who spent years raising rats in the laboratory and she calls "Shenanigans!" The following are some of the factoids she cited:

-) Rat Kings have been placed on display since the 12th century, but always dead. A living Rat King has never been authoritatively documented.

-) Adult rats have bones all the way down their tails (see the X-Ray image) which would make it impossible for them to knot without breaking the bones.

-) New born rats have tails which are only 1/4" long, much too short to knot.

-) Child rats go through a hyperactive stage where they bounce around like so much popcorn in the microwave, leaving no chance for tails to heal together (and still too short to knot, maybe 3/4".)

-) So by the time the tail is long enough to knot, it already has too many bones to bend that way.

-) Rats tend to heal from the inside-out. My sister says you can actuall see the skin cells in the lower layers regenerating before the surface heals over. This would make it extremely difficult for the tails to heal together - they would be totally healed by the time the skin started to close up.

Finally, she suggested I find the book "More cunning than man: A social history of rats and men" by Robert Hendrickson. It contains a whole chapter on Rat Kings.

EvilJayson · Post by **EvilJayson** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 6:51 pm

"There are things in this world stranger than you or i can ever imagine"

One thing that could be a real rat king are siamese rats or conjoined rats to be PC about it where they are joined at the tail(highly unlikely but not imposible)

you know what is interesting in quintens world rat kings might be extreamly rare or just a myth as in they don't ever happen in nature mainly because when the wrights first showed up they wheren't recanised at first meaning rat kings with there legons of wrights are not common, and remember the rat king here was MADE remember not found.

-Jayson