This is not a specific area of interest for me normally although i have read James Herbert's The Rats, Lair and Domain which i found thought provoking and entertaining.

I was driving into work early this morning when i heard the host on a national talk radio station speaking to a guy from Hull, a large town on the North east coast of the UK. This guy works on the docks in Hull and he was calling in to answer a question posed earlier in the show (before i was listening) as to whether there was any truth to the rumour of what were termed "Giant Rats" being rife in the UK.

He said that he and his colleagues regularly see these creatures on a daily basis and that it was so much of an everyday occurrence that they didn't ever bother reporting the fact to anyone else. When asked as to the size he said that the largest ones were about the equal of a collie dog. He went on to say that one of his colleagues keeps a buzzard as a pet and that when one of these rats is killed or caught (i cant remember which he said) it gets given to that guy as food for the buzzard.

Shortly after he hung off another man called in, i cant remember exactly but i think he was from Liverpool and he said pretty much the same thing. He had seen very large rats many times on his route to work, early in the mornings, again by the docks.

Pictures are something that i obviously do not have as it was a radio show but hopefully this will be followed up by a section of the national press. If that happens i will post links on this thread, that is if it doesn't get removed as i know this subject has been covered before but, as far as i can see, not for a good while.

there are loads of rats in the UK, just go to the house of commons rats the size of humans regularly scurry up and down the corridors.

Not sure about rats the size of dogs, maybe a small dog but thats pushing it still.

I remember years back when i was a kid, we had a rat problem in the village and there were some caught the size of an average cat.

London would be a good place to start looking for them though, they are everywhere.

CX.

Originally posted by woodwardjnr
there are loads of rats in the UK, just go to the house of commons rats the size of humans regularly scurry up and down the corridors.

Oh come now! That comparison is rather unfair and derogatory towards rats.

Originally posted by Regensturm

Originally posted by woodwardjnr
there are loads of rats in the UK, just go to the house of commons rats the size of humans regularly scurry up and down the corridors.

Oh come now! That comparison is rather unfair and derogatory towards rats.

He's referring to Rattus Expensicus not to be confused with the more common Rattus Norvegicus.

I love rats and sincerely hope that they aren't getting any bigger. It would be a disaster for them. They've a much better chance of survival if they stay small.

Next to fish, I think people exaggerated the size of rats more often than not. The common sewer rat, which is a brown norway rat does not get that big. I know because I have them. In a prefect environment with endless supply of food, they maybe get to be 500grams. And that would be a whopper. Sewer rats have tough lives, and very few die from old age.

I have other rats that get quite large, if you let them. Sprague Dawley and Long Evans rats get almost double the size of the brown norways. But you won't find these in the wild. There albino and wouldn't stand a chance.

Unless there are some exotic rats running around, people are overestimating the size.

Tha'ts funny, I quite often see dogs the size of rats also!

I have to reiterate that i have no vested interest in saying that there are rats the size of dogs, it just piqued my interest when i heard these guys speaking about it.

I would direct people to the way James Herbert quantifies this in his work of fiction, "The Rats". He intimates that these huge rats are no different to their smaller predecessors other than when they realise that they can be the hunter now, rather than the hunted. Basically he is saying that a change in size does not affect the natural order of things but a change in mentality definetely carries with it much more sinister meanings.

I have no idea whether the men i heard on the radio show were telling the truth but from the tones of their voices i didn't doubt them at the time. I believe the most relevant part of all this is that they were both telling of large rats in, or around, the docks areas of their towns or cities. This makes sense to me with the water, constant supply of food and desolate nature of docks after the working day is done it would seem like the perfect scenario in which to find rats.
As to what would enable them to grow abnormally large, i do not know.

But i would still like to see one......from a distance......if not through a telescope then at least through a pair of binoculars.

Pure lies.
.
If these guys on the docks actually saw "a rat as big as a collie " they'd be trapping it and selling ther story to the daily star.

I've seen some giants on an island off Thailand but they'd still have got torn to bits by a decent ratting dog.

Either they are lieing or mistaken as I doubt that they'd confuse any of the really large none european rat varieties for anything but that.......

I can say that I've seen rats first-hand in England the size of housecats; that was about 20 years ago. I was on a work experience scheme with a local graphic design house, and one of their facilities was out at an industrial park, a fairly remote sub-rural location. Next to it was a landfill, and every morning you'd see the whole surface of the thing moving; literally crawling with rats. And no kidding, those bastards were HUGE.

The dockworker's story reminds me of when I used to head out there at 6-7am every morning.



[edit on 8-8-2009 by veritasvoice2009]

Originally posted by woodwardjnr
there are loads of rats in the UK, just go to the house of commons rats the size of humans regularly scurry up and down the corridors.

That's funny - star for you!

as big as collies?? Some how I doubt that, a wee bit of exaggeration I think.

They can get pretty large though if there is enough food about and not too many rats (the more rats you have the younger the average age of the group tends to be) - a house cat size I would think is the biggest - but who knows? Maybe they live in toxic radioactive goo!