Rats not fair! Rodents will free trapped cage mates and are actually kind-hearted generous creatures



Rats are synonymous with double-crossing and cheating in love, but they may not really be such rotters.

According to researchers, they are actually kind and generous.

Chicago University scientists housed rats in pairs so that they got to know each other.



Kind and generous creatures: A rat nudges open the door to free its cagemate stuck in a plastic tube

They then placed one in a transparent tube inside the cage, and found that the second rat was distressed until it worked out how to free the first one.

To their astonishment, not only did the creatures help cage-mates in distress, they also selflessly shared their treats with them.

Perhaps less surprisingly, the female rats seemed to be more caring than the males.

During the experiment, scientists found that the roaming rat became agitated the sight of its trapped friend, meaning it had picked up on the animal's distress, and, according to the scientists, showing the simplest form of empathy.

But the free animal went much further, learning how to open the tube door, without being shown, and freeing its cage-mate.

This said the researchers, meant the animal was 'putting itself in the other's shoes' – a much more complex form of empathy.

A friend in need: Rats were shown to become agitated when they saw another rodent trapped, researchers say this mean they have a simple form of empathy

Numerous rats repeated the pattern, the journal Science reports.

Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal said: 'We are not training these rats in any way. These rats are learning because they are motivated by something internal.

'We are not showing them how to open the door. It's hard to open the door. But they keep trying and trying and eventually it works.'



In further experiments, the rats had little or no interest in releasing stuffed toys trapped in the tube but they freed real rats even when no allowed to play with them afterwards.

This, say the researchers, shows that the liberator rats' motivation was to ease the distress of the trapped animals.

A rat pack: In a final experiment scientists tested if a rat would choose chocolate over mounting a rescue, the animal frequently chose the rescue

The final experiment looked at where a rat's sympathies would lie when given the choice of mounting a rescue or eating some chocolate, a favoured treat.

The animal frequently chose to complete the rescue before tucking in and sharing their chocolate stash with their companion.

Peggy Mason said: 'That was very compelling. It said to us that essentially helping their cage-mate is on par with chocolate. We were shocked.'

The results also hinted at the female rats being more likely to mount rescue attempts, perhaps reflecting the importance of empathy in motherhood.

The research team said that acting out of empathy is clearly not unique to humans – and suggested we might be able to learn a thing or two from the humble rat.

Professor Mason said: 'When we act without empathy, we are acting against our biological inheritance.