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 – show 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 the rodent 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 stopped moving, one monkey took it to their waterhole, apparently to drown it.

After repeatedly dunking in the water, the monkey poked at the rat to see if it could still move.

But the crafty rat was just playing possum and ran for it as soon as the monkey loosened its grip.

The clip closes with the rat disappearing down a narrow hole in the rocks that the monkeys cannot get through.

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.”

Which of the city parks the incident happened at was unclear.

But the area is the home of the famous Monkey Mountain, where locals visit to see large groups of monkeys living in the wild.