A hungry rodent is thought to be to blame for more than 1,000 West Auckland broadband users being bereft of Internet connectivity for more than 24 hours.

The unidentified creature nibbled through a 144-fiber strand cable operated by telco Chorus in the Massey suburb, bringing down connectivity for locals, as well as those in Swanson, Ranui, Westgate, and parts of West Harbour.

Send in some Cat5

The cable cut was “most likely by a rodent, based on similar damage we have seen elsewhere,” Chorus spokesperson Steve Pettigrew said.

He added that a technician worked through to 2 am on Wednesday re-splicing damaged fiber strands, with service slowly returning.

Hundreds of power cuts are attributable to squirrels, snakes, and other critters that accidentally short circuit equipment - but the result is usually worse for them than it is for the grid.

Google once discovered that it was suffering from frequent short outages on a multi-terabit fiber path through Oregon, and traced it back to cows that liked to step on the cable. The company also had to reinforce thousands of miles of submarine cables after discovering that sharks liked to attack them.

As for data centers themselves, cats once filled a data center with hair and poop. Another time, a deer broke into one as it was being decommissioned.