Researchers have proved that rats love playing hide and seek after teaching them not only how to search for hiding humans but also how to hide from them and wait to be discovered.
While hide and seek is a popular game that most of us have played at some point during our childhood (or adulthood), most people don’t know that certain animals also love to play the game.
As scientists from Berlin, Germany, concluded, rats enjoy playing hide and seek with the humans who taught them the rules of the game.
While previous studies already confirmed rats like playing, this is the first time results revealed that they are also great at hide and seek despite the ‘complexity’ aka specific rules of the game.
After watching numerous videos of rats playing with their owners on YouTube, Neuroscientist Michael Brecht and his team at University in Berlin decided to come up with an enclosed hide and seek playground to put rats to the test.
Annika Stefanie Reinhold, the game master behind the experiment, taught six rats about the rules of the game before starting the experiment.
During the playtime, Annika placed the rats in a lidded box before hiding behind objects and remotely opening the box. When it was their turn to seek, all of the rats would search for Annika until they found her. In addition, they jumped excitedly after coming across her hiding spot.
When the roles changed, the rats would hide and wait patiently for Annika to find them before going in for a cuddle.
According to the team of scientists behind the experiment, the rats truly enjoyed playing hide and seek and didn’t do it for the treats. They backed up their claims by explaining how the rats jumped excitedly after each game, something that other mammals such as dogs do as well when they are happy.
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