Giant rat found in 'lost volcano'

A new species of giant rat has been discovered deep in the jungle of Papua New Guinea.

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

The creature, which has not yet been formally described, was discovered by an expedition team filming the BBC programme Lost Land of the Volcano.

It is one of a number of exotic animals found by the expedition team.

Like the other exotic species, the rat is believed to live within the Mount Bosavi crater, and nowhere else.

"This is one of the world's largest rats. It is a true rat, the same kind you find in the city sewers," says Dr Kristofer Helgen, a mammalogist based at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History who accompanied the BBC expedition team.

Initially, the giant rat was first captured on film by an infrared camera trap, which BBC wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan set up in the forest on the slopes of the volcano.

news.bbc.co.uk...

Imagine that!!
They say rats leave a sinking ship.. if these ones ever did then there is more chance the ship would stay afloat!

It's kinda hard to work out the actual size of these things (especially when the BBCs video player wont load properly on my comp.) so to give you an idea, I found a thread here on ATS about a similar sized rat found a few years back..
www.abovetopsecret.com...

James Herbert must have known something

I read another article about this at work this morning.
They also found other types of bugs and spiders and a frogs with fangs.

Found it.
www.news.com.au...

Among the other finds, scientist also list an “extremely hairy” caterpillar, at least 16 new species of frog – including the fanged example – 20 new varieties of insects and spiders and possibly a new species of bat.

[edit on 7/9/2009 by wycky]

reply to post by wycky


Nice I'd love to see the fanged frogs always wanted to see an evil frog

Wow,

The giant rats, the fanged frogs, and the spiders and beetles are going to take over the world!

Not the NWO!!

Power to the critters!!!

Wow very interesting that they are finding them only in an area that once had a volcano! There must have been some good "fertilizer" that came out of that thing for sure.
To give some conversions: 82 centimeters is 32 1/4 inches
That is one big rat, almost 3 feet! I really hope they get out some pictures of the new insects and amphibian's to. I know my son would love to look into it.
It just really goes to show how little we really know about the world around us at times. There are places like this all over the world and here we are thousands of years later still finding them!

Here two links:

1. Short article and audio:
www.guardian.co.uk...
2. Some beautiful pictures of other animals found in the crater:
www.dailymail.co.uk...

Originally posted by xoxo stacie
It just really goes to show how little we really know about the world around us at times. There are places like this all over the world and here we are thousands of years later still finding them!

I agree.
Im all for space exploration but i think some of that money would be well spent exploring our own planet, especially the oceans.
I think there is still so much to learn about ourselves and our history by exploring Earth.

Let's hope Bear Grylls doesn't find one of these rats because he will definitely eat it Sounds like there are some interesting species inside the crater.

^ Why do you have an avatar of Usama Bin Laden? Is he like your idol? Rofl.

Anyway, that's a huge rat. Not big enough to make me go O_O, but it's still pretty big. The other animals look so awesome, especially the green frog. I lol'ed so hard at the facial expressionXD It's like "HELO I R FR0G LULZ" XD




[edit on 12-9-2009 by ZikhaN]

reply to post by Extralien


that rat is obviously domesticated by humans...it should've run away.

Capybaras are rodents that can grow up to 4.3 ft in length.
en.wikipedia.org...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/b14c47a6fb75.jpg[/atsimg]

What a cutie.

reply to post by Extralien


That is a cool find. The rat is very chilled out and goes about his business as the explorers dote on him. The spider looks pretty cool, and the fanged frogs come from a short story of Stephen King's.