Comments on: Giant Rat or Coypu?

By: red_pill_junkie

red_pill_junkie — Wed, 16 May 2012 01:16:47 +0000

Why bury it when they could have taken to a vet or something to uncover the mystery? :-/

Reminds me of the stories my uncle Fernando used to tell us about a giant rat he killed in his warehouse. The rat kept getting bigger and bigger each year.

By: Hapa

Hapa — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:52:47 +0000

BTW: here is a Wikipedia link on Coypus or Nutria Rats. Notice the differences between the giant UK Rat and the Nutria: Is it just me, or is the man taking the pic using the "Put the animal closer to the camera and the guy further from it to make the creature appear larger" trick? Perhaps this is why he buried it instead of bringing it forward for examination?

By: Hapa

Hapa — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:48:19 +0000

Seeing that pic makes me think of the giant rats in HG Well’s “Food of the Gods” (which had such giant rats in the UK). Dang, that thing could eat house cats!

Now here is the problem: he killed the giant rat, he took a photo of it (as if photos are magic: everybody believes a photo, right? Can’t be faked at all, right? That’s why we know King Kong and Godzilla exist: if its on film or photo, it MUST BE TRUE!), and then he buried it…

Folks, when you find (and kill or not) a giant rat like this, or any other anomalous animal, preserve the body, take it to reputable scientists, and get the critter examined! We can only tell so much from pics, and though I have no reason to doubt this photo, pseudo-skeptics just might, and they carry a lot of excess weight with the scientific Community. It is up to the discoverer to get the animal to reputable scientists to figure out what it is, and if its a new species, catalogue it. Heck It might be good enough to take it first to a high school science teacher, who might have contacts with scientists who might be available to examine the specimen.

And if you indeed found a new species; you might get it named after YOU. Isn’t that worth more than the lesser 15 minutes of fame?

By: EineHexe

EineHexe — Tue, 15 May 2012 16:56:58 +0000

For me it looks more like a muskrat than a coypu.

By: whiteriverfisherman

whiteriverfisherman — Tue, 15 May 2012 16:18:01 +0000

Looks like a big rat to me. Reminds me of the giant brown one I saw in my yard years ago when I lived in Mobile AL. At first I thought it was a brown opossum. The one I saw was at least that big and had fur nearly the color of a mink. It lived under the piece of crap trailer I was renting at the time. I’ve not seen one that big since. I wish I could have got a photo. No cell phones back then so no photo. It was not a Nutria rat either, it was a rat rat. It didnt seem to fear me and just looked over at me when I pulled up the drive on my motorcycle. The first thing I said was holy crap that a big freaking rat!! My ex-wife saw it a couple of times as well. When I was kid my brothers and I saw a giant rat on a jetty on the NJ coast. That one looked like the one in this post.

By: h0w31rd

h0w31rd — Tue, 15 May 2012 11:43:03 +0000

Could it be a Gambian pouched rat. They seem to have them in NYC now also.

By: hoosierhunter2

hoosierhunter2 — Tue, 15 May 2012 02:50:06 +0000

It’s not possible to tell from the picture which it is. I read that the Coypu have webbed hind feet and large orange-yellow incisors as well as nipple on its flanks, so identification should have been easy had the body been preserved or even the hind feet or teeth kept. Obviously this man has no idea which it was and just figures it was a pest that needed eradicated. I guess I can understand that if you thought it was a big rat that lived near your home. Still, I’m curious to know which it was, too.