CAN WILD ANIMALS BECOME OVERWEIGHT?

In 2019, firefighters in the German town of Bensheim rescued a chubby rat that had become stuck trying to squeeze itself through a small gap in a manhole cover. The rotund rodent was sent on its way with a valuable life lesson: that overeating isn’t necessarily a good idea. Overweight animals are slow and vulnerable to predation, so don’t last long. The animals we think of as fat – seals, walruses and polar bears – aren’t overweight at all. Their blubber is an adaptation that offers buoyancy, insulation and energy storage, so sometimes it’s all about survival of the fattest.