They live a solitary life, however, experiments have shown that sociality does alter the rat's behaviors and that the rat does indeed have some ability to form generalized sociality. Sociality is measured by willingness to participate in social interactions. Kangaroo rats exhibit their willingness to interact with each other with a characteristic foot drumming, where increased foot drumming was associated with unwillingness to socialize and the absence of foot drumming was associated with willingness to socialize. High rates of interspecies competition has been observed; however, intraspecies competition between Heermann's kangaroo rats has not been directly observed.