Natural History Wanderings

Research Shows Rats May Display Altruism

Contrary to their reputation as selfish and greedy, rats may actually be supportive and empathetic towards each other. In a research setting it was observed that rats would free each other when one was trapped.  The experiment was repeated with a toy rat and it was found that rats rarely made an effort to free a trapped toy rat.

What is not clear is what was the real motivation of the freeing behavior. Was it empathy for the trapped rat?  Was the rat who did the freeing behavior irritated by the situation and trying to just reduce the level of it own irritation? More research is being conducted to see if the motivation can be determined.

Read more at Nature News Rats free each other from cages