Caught on camera: Rats hunting bats mid-flight
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s a bat that catches rats!
For the first time, a Norway rat has been filmed actively hunting bats. These never-before-seen images show the rat having a snack at hibernation sites in northern Germany. While it’s undeniably impressive that rats can eat their meal in mid-flight, the new images don’t bode well for the bats. According to a study recently published in the journal Global ecology and conservationRat predation can cause enough damage to significantly threaten local bat populations.
Norway rats are, in fact, the same rats that wander through New York City subway stations and drive tiny cars. Also called Norway rats, these rodents are very adaptive and excellent breeders. And wherever humans are, you can be sure that Norway rats live there too. Despite their bad reputation, rats are incredibly intelligent. They can think ahead, imagine solutions to problems, beat AI at recognizing hidden objects, and even learn their own names. But their superior rodent brains can also make them excellent little hunters.
For this study, researchers installed thermal and infrared cameras to monitor two bat hibernation sites in the towns of Segeberg and LĂĽneburg-Kalkberg, Germany. The two main species present on the sites are the Daubenton’s hairy and short-eared bat (Myotis daubentonii) and the lighter-colored Natterer’s bat (Myotis nattereri).
The team analyzed camera images captured over several months between 2021 and 2024, during periods when bats were most active. The images revealed a new apex predator in the brown rat. (We’re mostly joking.)
The researchers observed two distinct bat hunting strategies. Some rats perked up as they caught the unfortunate bats in mid-flight. Others approached the unsuspecting bats as they rested on the ground.
Capture and predation of a Daubenton’s bat landed by a Norway rat. Video: Gloza-Rausch et al. (2025) Global ecology and conservation.
In Segeberg, the team filmed 13 of these astonishing murders. The researchers also cataloged a total of 52 rat-ravaged bat carcasses scattered throughout the cave. Similar findings have also been documented in LĂĽneburg-Kalkberg.
While that doesn’t seem like a ton of bats, the team calculated that even a small colony of rats (around 15 rats) could kill more than seven percent of the approximately 30,000 bats that spend their winters in Segeberg. And that’s a problem, both for bats and humans.
“Managing invasive rodents at important bat hibernation sites supports biodiversity conservation,” the team wrote in the study. Managing these bat-killing rats also “reduces potential public health impacts as part of a One Health strategy (an approach that considers the health of humans, animals and the environment together). »
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