Rats have learnt how to drive cars to get Froot Loops

Rats! We know for a fact that there are more than a few of you out there in the comments section who reckon rats are bloody grouse. You’ll have loads of ‘em as pets and you’ll hug ‘em and pet ‘em and treat ‘em like they’re bloody dogs. And that’s fine. They can be pretty friendly little buggers, and they’re pretty smart too. Of course, we also know some of you see them as nothing but plague-bearing, food-stealing pests, and you know what, that’s valid too. Just like people, some rats are f**ken arseholes. Today, though, we’re talking about the clever ones who’ve learned to drive!

Deadset, you read that right. While taking a break from injecting the little f**kers with cancer cells, Science has decided to do something a little whimsical. A couple of scientists from the University of Richmond have engineered special rat cars and taught them to drive.

Credit: Kelly Lambert/University of Richmond

It’s all part of an experiment designed to measure the rats’ cognitive abilities. Basically, they put ‘em in the car and see if they can drive their way to a specially placed froot loop. Basically, there’s a copper bar in the vehicle that works like an accelerator. When the rodent grabs it with its cute little paws, it triggers an electric circuit and f**ken broom broom!

Credit: Kelly Lambert/University of Richmond

Kelly Lambert, a professor of behavioural neuroscience at the uni reckons, “They learned to navigate the car in unique ways and engaged in steering patterns they had never used to eventually arrive at the reward.”

Credit: Kelly Lambert/University of Richmond

Lambert also reckons that, “…rats are smarter than most people perceive them to be and that most animals are smarter in unique ways than we think.”

That’s a school of thought we can get behind.

Credit: Kelly Lambert/University of Richmond

Final thought: The more ‘Science’ we see, the more we think it’s a great bloody job. Deadset, you can do all kinds of crazy s**t and call it an experiment. Seriously, we reckon they’re bulls**tting us. This isn’t about measuring their cognitive ability. This is totally about creating an epic Mad Max-style rat competition. Once the rodents get fully sick at driving, they’ll limit the froot loops and let them fight for the remaining ones in f**ken awesome rat car chases. Just quietly, we’d watch the s**t out of that!

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Video Link: IFLScience

H/T: CNET.