Two mice were filmed sparring on a train platform at Oxford Circus Underground station on Saturday while amazed commuters waited for their train.
The battle between the two rodents broke out on the Central Line platform, where passengers watched the pair chase each other in circles as they fought over what appeared to be a scrap of food dropped on the station floor.
Video recorded by a commuter captured one passenger chuckling as the tussle escalated. Without a cat to break up the pair, the mice began lunging at each other while the person recording egged them on, shouting, "Go on, get him!"
A brief detente followed as the two mice temporarily separated and moved to opposite sides of the platform. However, the truce proved short-lived. The rodents quickly resumed their battle, standing upright on their hind legs and throwing punches at one another in a scene resembling a miniature boxing match.
Onlookers on the platform could be heard sniggering as the fight reached its climax. Eventually, one mouse emerged victorious from the confrontation and claimed the food prize, forcing the defeated opponent to scurry away across the platform.
Platform fight over food scraps
Oxford Circus Underground station is located in the West End of London beneath the junction of Oxford Street and Regent Street. Serving the Central, Bakerloo, and Victoria lines, it is one of the busiest stations on the London Underground network. Millions of passengers pass through its deep-level tube platforms every year, frequently leaving behind food crumbs that attract underground wildlife.
Mice have inhabited the underground rail network for decades, foraging for discarded snacks in the dark tunnels after train service finishes. The comical spectacle of two rodents fighting on a public platform evoked memories of Tom and Jerry, the famous animated media franchise created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera that features a cat and mouse engaged in endless slapstick battles.
The footage recorded at Oxford Circus bears a striking resemblance to an award-winning photograph taken by wildlife photographer Sam Rowley inside the London Underground network.
Award winning wildlife photography
Rowley captured his famous image, titled "Station Squabble," after spending a week overnight inside the Tube network. He lay flat on train platforms to get the best angle for his shots, enduring strange looks from late-night commuters as he waited for mice to appear.
His efforts paid off when "Station Squabble" beat more than 48,000 other entries to win the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition in 2020, hosted by the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, London.
At the time of the award, the competition panel of judges noted that Rowley discovered lying on the platform was the most effective way to photograph the mice inhabiting the Underground. The judges said: "He only saw them fight over scraps of food dropped by passengers a few times, possibly because it is so abundant. This fight lasted a split second, before one grabbed a crumb and they went their separate ways."
