A "rat king" occurs when the tails of several rats become stuck together through knotting, blood, ice, dirt, or sticky unsavory organic substances and the bunch of rodents grows together as one unit. The most famous one, illustrated here, was found in 1828 and is currently located in the Mauritianum Museum in Altenburg, Germany. It features 32 rats.
Finds are rare, with the last known one occurring in Estonia in 2005. Part of the scarcity may be due to the displacement in the 1700s of the black rat (Rattus rattus) by the Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus). For some reason, rat kings are more likely to be produced in black rat colonies. There are also reports of mouse kings (even other than the one in The Nutcracker ballet) and squirrel kings.
Many superstitious peasants in the Middle Ages considered it an unfavorable omen to find a rat king in a house. Others merely regarded it as yecchy.
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