This is the moment a group of monkeys teach a lesson to a cheeky rat that had been stealing their food at a Chinese animal park.
Video footage – shot by a visitor – shows the monkeys flushing out the rat as it tries to hide under the food dish.
Then after grabbing the rodent, one of the troop swings it around by its tail, bashing its head on rocks in the enclosure in Quzhou, Zhejiang Province.
The visitor who shot the footage – identified only by her surname as Mrs Dong – had taken her family to the park for the day.
The clip shows that after the stunned rat stops moving, one monkey takes it to the waterhole, apparently to drown it.
After repeatedly dunking it in the water, the monkey pokes at the rat to see if it can still move.
But the crafty rat has just been playing dead and runs for it as soon as the monkey loosens its grip.
The clip closes with the rat disappearing down a narrow hole in the rocks.
Mrs Dong explained: ‘I have seen the rats before and I was thought that they weren’t disturbing the monkeys, and I certainly didn’t expect it to be beaten.
‘I guess they were not impressed at the rat stealing their food.’
