Scientists on hike spot dead rodent — then see a surprising creature ‘nibbling’ away

Scientists were just about to leave a mountain lake in Greece when they spotted an “opportunistic predator” munching on a dead rodent — and made a first-of-its-kind discovery.

Researchers visited Lake Kosmeou in October 2023 to survey the area’s amphibians, according to a study published April 26 in the peer-reviewed journal Herpetozoa. They were looking for a specific group of semiaquatic salamanders known as newts.

Toward the end of their survey, researchers spotted “a rodent carcass at the shallow end of the lake” with a few alpine newts “nibbling” on it, the study said.

Alpine newts, also known as Ichthyosaura alpestris, are “small-sized” salamanders that live at high altitude bodies of water across Europe, researchers said. They are an “opportunistic predator” known to feed mainly on various types of invertebrates and juvenile amphibians.

But alpine newts had never been seen eating mammals or scavenging for food — until now.

To make sure the newts were actually eating the rodent and not bugs on it, researchers fished the carcass out of the water and inspected it, the study said. They found no “hidden aquatic invertebrates or worms that could explain this uncommon newt behaviour … forcing us to hypothesise that the newts were indeed lured to the carcass itself.”

To test their hypothesis, researchers moved the rodent carcass to another spot of the lake. Once again, three alpine newts “approached it and started eating its decomposing flesh,” the study said.

A photo shows an alpine newt taking a bite out of the pinkish white rodent carcass.

Other species of newt living in the same lake ignored the rodent.

Researchers described the encounter as a first-of-its-kind observation that added a new type of prey to the diet of alpine newts and showed the animal’s “previously unknown scavenging behaviour.”

Lake Kosmeou is near the small village of Flambourari and a roughly 270-mile drive northwest of Athens.

The research team included Thomas Daftsios, Dionisios Iakovidis, Nikolaos Gogolos and Kostas Sagonas.

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