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    Giant rat found in 'lost volcano'

    The rat, which has no fear of humans, measures 82cm long, placing it among the largest species of rat known anywhere in the world.

    I love the fact that it's still possible to discover fairly large new species (as opposed to, you know, butterflies or whatever).

    #2
    Giant rat found in 'lost volcano'

    It was actually cute, the pictures that were on breakfast time. The no fear of humans thing was touching - it was coming up to them to be stroked and petted like a domestic cat, while they fed it titbits.

    The dodo on Mauritius did the same, as I recall, until the sailors caught and ate them all in the space of about 3 years.

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      #3
      Giant rat found in 'lost volcano'

      How disappointing. I would have expected a lost volcano to have contained several species of dinosaur at the very least.

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        #4
        Giant rat found in 'lost volcano'

        Of course, Tom Baker came across one of these three decades ago.

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          #5
          Giant rat found in 'lost volcano'

          And of course:

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            #6
            Giant rat found in 'lost volcano'

            Wasn't "The Giant Rat of Sumatra" one of the Sherlock Holmes escapades alluded to but never documented by Dr Watson?

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              #7
              Giant rat found in 'lost volcano'

              I wonder if this counts as an example of island gigantism. I mean, for a start, New Guinea is pretty big. It's also been inhabited for enough time that humans could have exerted considerable selective pressure against large mammals. Then again, so many parts of it are inaccessible, and Wikipedia has this to say:
              The native mammal fauna of New Guinea lacks large predators.[4] The carnivorous marsupials, Dasyuromorphia, of New Guinea are all small in comparison to Australian species, and most are insectivorous. The largest is the Bronze Quoll (Dasyurus spartacus), a rare quoll, first discovered in southern New Guinea in 1979.[5] It reaches a snout to vent length of 36 centimetres (14.2 in). Fossils of larger marsupials have been found, including the carnivorous Thylacine (Thylacinus sp.),[6] however evidence of carnivorous megafauna, such as the marsupial lion (Thylacoleo), has not been found.[4]
              So it probably does count.

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                #8
                Giant rat found in 'lost volcano'

                That's not a rat, this is a rat

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                  #9
                  Giant rat found in 'lost volcano'

                  Rats the size of cats? Looks like David Bowie was right all along.

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                    #10
                    Giant rat found in 'lost volcano'

                    Spearmint Rhino wrote:
                    The rat, which has no fear of humans, measures 82cm long, placing it among the largest species of rat known anywhere in the world.

                    I love the fact that it's still possible to discover fairly large new species (as opposed to, you know, butterflies or whatever).
                    wrote:

                    Send my agent the script. I'll do it!

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                      #11
                      Giant rat found in 'lost volcano'

                      The dodo on Mauritius did the same, as I recall, until the sailors caught and ate them all in the space of about 3 years.
                      Dodos weren't dined-upon to death. Apparently they tasted horrible (although I suppose they might still have scoffed the eggs). They became extinct because the cats and dogs that the settlers brought killed them - the dodos had no defence against predators and no means of escaping - and because the settlers destroyed the dodos' habitat.

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                        #12
                        Giant rat found in 'lost volcano'

                        Andy C wrote:
                        The dodo on Mauritius did the same, as I recall, until the sailors caught and ate them all in the space of about 3 years.
                        Dodos weren't dined-upon to death. Apparently they tasted horrible (although I suppose they might still have scoffed the eggs). They became extinct because the cats and dogs that the settlers brought killed them - the dodos had no defence against predators and no means of escaping - and because the settlers destroyed the dodos' habitat.
                        That's not what Bill Oddie said.

                        And he's not going to mislead the Great British Public about wildlife and birds, is he?

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                          #13
                          Giant rat found in 'lost volcano'

                          I'm just wondering whether that remark admits me to the ranks of the otf food snobs.

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                            #14
                            Giant rat found in 'lost volcano'

                            I'm more worried about how they managed to lose a volcano in the first place. Surely that has to be criminal carelessness?

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                              #15
                              Giant rat found in 'lost volcano'

                              pebblethefish wrote:
                              I'm more worried about how they managed to lose a volcano in the first place. Surely that has to be criminal carelessness?
                              They managed it in 1883…

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                                #16
                                Giant rat found in 'lost volcano'

                                david attenborough was talking about dodos in a recent podcast - he remarked on the naivety that led them to walk straight up to the humans who killed them and that this was why they were called "dodo" - it meant "stupid" in portuguese.

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                                  #17
                                  Giant rat found in 'lost volcano'

                                  One of the weirdest things about The Voyage of the Beagle to me as a modern reader is the number of times Darwin describes some completely tame indigineous species coming up to him, only for him to bash it on the head to add to his collection.

                                  This disposition is common to all the terrestrial species; namely, to the mocking-thrushes, the finches, wrens, tyrant- flycatchers, the dove, and carrion-buzzard. All of them are often approached sufficiently near to be killed with a switch, and sometimes, as I myself tried, with a cap or hat. A gun is here almost superfluous; for with the muzzle I pushed a hawk off the branch of a tree.
                                  These animals, at Maldonado, were very tame; by cautiously walking, I approached within three yards of four old ones. This tameness may probably be accounted for, by the Jaguar having been banished for some years, and by the Gaucho not thinking it worth his while to hunt them. As I approached nearer and nearer they frequently made their peculiar noise, which is a low abrupt grunt, not having much actual sound, but rather arising from the sudden expulsion of air: the only noise I know at all like it, is the first hoarse bark of a large dog. Having watched the four from almost within arm's length (and they me) for several minutes, they rushed into the water at full gallop with the greatest impetuosity, and emitted at the same time their bark. After diving a short distance they came again to the surface, but only just showed the upper part of their heads. When the female is swimming in the water, and has young ones, they are said to sit on her back. These animals are easily killed in numbers; but their skins are of trifling value, and the meat is very indifferent.

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                                    #18
                                    Giant rat found in 'lost volcano'

                                    Anyway, this reminds me of the time I was writing the Sidelines column in Time Out and a friend of mine reckoned he'd seen a giant rat-squirrel mutant in Archway, and I didn't have much else in the way of gossip so I wrote it up as an item, complete with a couple of phone quotes from an expert at the Royal Zoological Society on the feasibility of rats and squirrels breeding to create this aggressive new hybrid (which I'd christened the 'rattel') terrorising the alleyways of North London. And then a month later Fortean Times picked it up and ran with it, which dented my faith in that mag a little...

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                                      #19
                                      Giant rat found in 'lost volcano'

                                      Vampire Frog? You just know that the tv crew decided to have soem fun with that one hey? "Ere Burt, what say you we slap a couple of toyshop fangs on this frog and bob's yer uncle! Who's too know?!"

                                      I wonder if they found any giant spiders...

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                                        #20
                                        Giant rat found in 'lost volcano'

                                        I'm so disappointed to find out that the rattel's failed to make it to the internet world.

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                                          #21
                                          Giant rat found in 'lost volcano'

                                          Ha!

                                          I remember that 'Rattel' thing from the start, SR. Nice one!

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                                            #22
                                            Giant rat found in 'lost volcano'

                                            I was once waiting for a tube from Baker Street - I was standing at the end of the platform - when I noticed an empty 1.5l 'Coke' paper cup 'vibrating' on the track. I guessed that it must be doing so because some current was running through it somehow (it was right next to the live rail). But then... this rat backed out of it that pretty much filled the entire beaker! It was colossal - the biggest one I've ever seen. I'm not scared of rats, so I was happy to watch it, but it did make me go "bloody hell!" somewhat.

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