A search is underway for a man who posted a video of himself biting the head of a live rat and swallowing it with three shots of vodka.

The man, identified in the video as 'Mad Matt', enters a room and is hit by a fluorescent light tube. He then bites the head off the rat and swallows it with vodka, before he is punched in the face and has a chair broken over his back.

'Mad Matt,' whose real name is Matt Maloney, then challenged viewers to "beat that."

The video, which has been viewed almost 200,000 times, has been condemned online and by animal welfare representatives.

RSPCA Queensland media and communications manager Michael Beatty said the organisation as aware of the incident.