# Is the "now the rats only eat rat" story from Skyfall plausible? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 10, 2022, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-now-the-rats-only-eat-rat-story-from-skyfall-plausible/957533 "2022-01-10T17:17:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-now-the-rats-only-eat-rat-story-from-skyfall-plausible/957533/1 "2022-01-10T17:17:31Z")
In the James Bond film _Skyfall,_ villain Raul Silva introduces himself by telling a story to Bond: Silva: Hello, James. Welcome. Do you like the island? My grandmother had an island. Nothing to boast of. You could walk around it in an hour, but still it was, it was a paradise for us. One summer, we went for a visit and discovered the place had been infested with rats! They’d come on a fishing boat and gorged themselves on coconut. So how do you get rats off an island? Hmm? My grandmother showed me. We buried an oil drum and hinged the lid. Then we wired coconut to the lid as bait and the rats would come for the coconut, and… [imitates metallic scuttering] Silva: They would fall into the drum. And after a month, you have trapped all the rats, but what do you do then? Throw the drum into the ocean? Burn it? No. You just leave it and they begin to get hungry. And one by one… [mimics rat munching sound] Silva: They start eating each other, until there are only two left. The two survivors. And then what? Do you kill them? No. You take them and release them into the trees, but now they don’t eat coconut anymore. Now, they only eat rat. You have changed their nature. The two survivors. This is what she made us. Is it theoretically possible to engineer animals into becoming cannibals in this way? Gruesome question, I know. ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-now-the-rats-only-eat-rat-story-from-skyfall-plausible/957533/2 "2022-01-10T17:33:13Z")
Behavior sink. Demonstrated in the famous “rat utopia” experiment. “Many [female rats] were unable to carry pregnancy to full term or to survive delivery of their litters if they did. An even greater number, after successfully giving birth, fell short in their maternal functions. Among the males the behavior disturbances ranged from sexual deviation to cannibalism and from frenetic overactivity to a pathological withdrawal from which individuals would emerge to eat, drink and move about only when other members of the community were asleep. The social organization of the animals showed equal disruption…” Here is the Wiki story: > **[Behavioral sink](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink)** > > "Behavioral sink" is a term invented by ethologist John B. Calhoun to describe a collapse in behavior which can result from overcrowding. The term and concept derive from a series of over-population experiments Calhoun conducted on Norway rats between 1958 and 1962. > In the experiments, Calhoun and his researchers created a series of "rat utopias" – enclosed spaces in which rats were given unlimited access to food and water, enabling unfettered population growth. Calhoun coined the term "behavi Ca... ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-now-the-rats-only-eat-rat-story-from-skyfall-plausible/957533/3 "2022-01-10T17:55:34Z")
Mixdenny has a good cite there, we did a similar experiment with mice at our college. However, although the rats would get a taste for rat or meat in general, but that won’t over come their basic omnivorous DNA. Meat may those two rats preferred meal but where are they gonna get it? Remember, only two rats. So one rat kills and eats the other, then what? That survivor will eat coconut or whatever in order to survive. However, I don’t see the point in releasing those rats or not just dumping the entire drum into the ocean. So yeah, rats will eat pretty much anything, including rat. And yes, we found that rodents might get a preference for meat, instead of rat chow, etc. But that does not change their DNA or anything. Pretty much, perhaps except on a very narrow and limited level, **Lamarckianism,** has been discredited. > **[Lamarckism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarckism)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > > Lamarckism, also known as Lamarckian inheritance or neo-Lamarckism, is the notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime. It is also called the inheritance of acquired characteristics or more recently soft inheritance. The idea is named after the French zoologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829), who incorporated the classical era theory ... ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-now-the-rats-only-eat-rat-story-from-skyfall-plausible/957533/4 "2022-01-10T19:58:22Z")
Right- the last two rats might like rat meat, but the implication that they’re going to hunt down other rats and eat them rather than eat coconut is a mighty big stretch. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-now-the-rats-only-eat-rat-story-from-skyfall-plausible/957533/5 "2022-01-10T21:02:26Z")
And, there are no other rats. But sure, put those two and let them choose coconut vs meat, and they will likely go for the meat, but so? ---
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-now-the-rats-only-eat-rat-story-from-skyfall-plausible/957533/6 "2022-01-10T21:10:30Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > So one rat kills and eats the other, then what? That survivor will eat coconut or whatever in order to survive. Yes, the original story is that you’ve trapped ALL the rats, so if you monitor the situation and release them when only two are left: - One rat having developed a taste for meat kills the other and is left alone to subsist on cocoanuts. Only one rat is left on the island. - The two rats find it too difficult to battle each other and both subsist on cocoanuts. Only two rats are left on the island. - Unless - at least one rat is an impregnated female. Then all bets are off. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-now-the-rats-only-eat-rat-story-from-skyfall-plausible/957533/7 "2022-01-10T21:13:41Z")
> [@Bonum\_Legatum](#): > > Unless - at least one rat is an impregnated female. Then all bets are off. Well, not since those rats will grow up to eat whatever they can, and rat will be low on the menu. The story is silly, to be honest. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-now-the-rats-only-eat-rat-story-from-skyfall-plausible/957533/8 "2022-01-10T21:19:41Z")
I think the idea is, the two uber cannibal rats will eat any future rats that immigrate to the island, so you don’t have to worry about the island getting over run again - you’ve got two (presumably same-gender) rats that will subsist on coconuts for most of the year, but still eat any new rats that come in on future fishing boats. Seems like it would be easier just to keep putting out fresh coconut-oil drum traps, since they’re apparently 100% effective. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-now-the-rats-only-eat-rat-story-from-skyfall-plausible/957533/9 "2022-01-10T21:21:52Z")
> [@mixdenny](#): > > Among the males the behavior disturbances ranged from sexual deviation to I am curious as to what constitutes “sexual deviation” in a rat. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2022, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-now-the-rats-only-eat-rat-story-from-skyfall-plausible/957533/10 "2022-01-10T21:25:54Z")
Yep. And in fact those two might just do that- for maybe a year, until they died. Or lost a rat fight. > [@mbh](#): > > I am curious as to what constitutes “sexual deviation” in a rat. Screwing food items, homosexuality, necrophilia, etc. Homosexuality among young male rodents was common, in these experiments. Of course we no longer consider Homosexuality to be sexual deviation in us humans.