Here is the big RAT ...
Posted on 12/16/2007 10:06:41 PM PST by NormsRevenge
Researchers in a remote jungle in Indonesia have discovered a giant rat - five times the size of a typical city rat - and a tiny possum that are apparently new to science.
Unearthing new species of mammals in the 21st century is very rare. The discoveries by a team of American and Indonesian scientists are being studied further to confirm their status.
The animals were found in the Foja mountains rainforest in eastern Papua province in a June expedition, said US-based Conservation International, which organised the trip along with the Indonesian Institute of Science.
"The giant rat is about five times the size of a typical city rat," said Kristofer Helgen, a scientist with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.
"With no fear of humans, it apparently came into the camp several times during the trip."
The possum was described as "one of the world's smallest marsupials".
A 2006 expedition to the same stretch of jungle - dubbed by Conservation International as a "Lost World" because until then humans had rarely visited it - unearthed scores of exotic new species of palms, butterflies and palms.
Papua has some of the world's largest tracts of rainforest, but like elsewhere in Indonesia they are being ravaged by illegal logging.
Scientists said last year that the Foja area was not under immediate threat, largely because it was so remote.
“What about the RUS’s?”
“Rodents of Unusual Size? I don’t think they exist. . .”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_rat
Perhaps the best known giant rat in fiction comes from the pen of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who in The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire has Sherlock Holmes declare, as an aside, to Dr. Watson:
Matilda Briggs was not the name of a young woman, Watson, . . . It was a ship which is associated with the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared.
Al Gore just announced that giant rats will be coming to your town unless draconian reductions in CO2 are made. Global warming will lead to the rise of grotesque creatures that will destroy our standard of living.
Clinton campaign contributors?
Chuck E. Cheese?
Thanks, I was trying to find a pic of this giant rat to get a better feel for how big it is...
It seems they do come in some pretty large sizes already.
There’s no way that giant rats in Indonesia are any kind of new discovery. I was in Sulawesi about 15 years ago, and the rats feasting at the garbage piles on the street were huge. As big as cats and not afraid of anything.
I was just going to say that Al Gore is down there right now for the “International ‘Global Warming’ Expo”.... My guess is that he went out for a walk in the jungle; some people saw him and figured he was a new species of Giant Rat.
Guess they never heard of ManBearPig down in Indonesia.
Nevada has their very own giant rat, his name Harry Reid.
these sound like they are big enough to eat cats..(no offense to cat lovers, I have one curled up by me now.)
I didn’t realize that
SHRILLERY AND DILLDO KLINTOON
had been to Indonesia on breeding expeditions.
Here is the big RAT ...
Dinsdale?
Can they be converted to gasoline?
Neat !!!
Pictures would have been appreciated.
Yes, Billery and Hildabest produced this new large rat - AL GORE.
I swear that rat is in my house. I live in that province and there is the biggest problem. Poison is just candy to them. I never, ever, never-ever leave anything remote associated with food out. It is all covered and in thick plastic or in a box (refridgerator even).
“Rodents of Unusual Size? I don’t think they exist...” LoL
How many times does it vote? (Five times as much as a city rat?)
No kidding. Prince Albert's really been packin' on the pounds lately... OH! You meant the other kind of giant rat.
Good grief, she IS melting!
Gosh she is an old geezer.
Reepicheep! Is that you?
Ya know they are flowndering when she agrees to go on FOX.
What time is it? Time for Botox!
I hope the FOX eats the RAT, but I won't be holding my breath.
Joe Lieberman and John McCain too. Said Lieberman may be making an announcement.
There’s no way that giant rats in Indonesia are any kind of new discovery.
How true !!!! Our congress is full of them!
Sounds like a fun morning. Thanks again.
That's about as big as they get!
They’re only in the Fire Swamp.
They must be a similar species in the SE USA. When I was growing up in Georgia, one of my after school jobs was rat control for a local chicken farmer. This guy had 5 chicken houses and plenty of rats to go around. Some of them were as big as cats because they were able to gorge themselves on chicken feed. One day I saw a rat trying to pull a chicken down a hole in the ground. When I went to pull the chicken away from the rat, the rat stood up on it's hind legs and hissed at me. Fearless......and headless shortly thereafter......
Apparently the impetus for testing this belief was what happened to some college students in Florida(?) . One opened the refrigerator one morning, and a live rat jumped out at him. The students swore up and down that it was a wild rat, no one had put it inside for a prank, and the rat must've somehow got the door open, crawled in, and then the door swung shut, trapping it. The program pretty much proved that yes, rats CAN open refrigerator doors-but inadvertently, not because they are smart enough to intend to open the door.
For now....
WHOA! That’s the worst picture I’ve ever seen of Hillary! (And that’s sayin’ somethin’!)
...all the Whos down in Whoville, the tall and the small...
It needs a dentist and a spot of fire in the swamp.
Quick scan of the thread and not yet one post as to what kind of firearm/round would be most effective for these critters. .45ACP? .40SW? 12 gauge shotgun?
Will somebody post the pict. of the cover of hillarys biography with the date that was taken and this picture today? Amazing what happens when you dont have a photoshop guy walking around you touching you up...
They, this is Indonesia: considering the huge partly underground peat fires they get there annually, I wouldn’t be suprised if we were talking about the Fire Swamp.
(If the greens really wanted to curb the emission of CO_2, rather than seizing control of the world economy, they’d be clamoring for an international program to put stop Indonesian peat fires, first. The annual CO_2 output from fires that do no one any good—unless maybe they benefit the RUS’s—exceeds that from Japan.)
Large rock.
They did however “Lay him to rest beside his hideous clockwork dog Totoâ€.
I have been chased by rats bigger than that one. And yes, I did in fact run, as I was unarmed.
I had a rat as a pet for a couple years in college. One of the sweetest little animals you’ve ever seen. Housebroke the rat and everything (litter trained her on newspaper.) She rode around in my sleeve. People were a little wary at first, but she won them over pretty quickly.
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