You are reading a single comment by @jackincaves and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
jackincaves
Was the squashed rat still alive? If so, it was probably dragging it out of danger, whether that was too late or not. While there is a spectrum from grief to cannibalism among mammals generally, I think rats have only been observed to cannibalise other rats if in distress, e.g. in a food shortage:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/starving-angry-cannibalistic-america-s-rats-are-getting-desperate-amid-n1180611
That may not have been the case here. I'd say the most likely scenario is that the rat was distressed the other rat had been hit and was either trying to save it and/or hadn't realised yet that it was dead.