Jumbo Rats?
–A recent episode of Monster Quest concerned giant rats, and there has been considerable commentary on the same in other blogs. The Gambian Pouched Rat is known to extend upwards of three feet from nose to tail. As in their previous giant hogs episode, Monster Quest failed to produce video images of huge rats despite a “rat cam.” I did like an incident reported of rats who acted in concert to attack a woman. It’s easy to produce a few souls who have claimed to have seen rats as big as cats, however, and rats of this size probably do exist. Stephen King had a memorable short story in which the biggest rat was the size of a calf.
‘Ya know what makes most people abhor rats?–Their tails! The hairless tails of rats tap into an instinctual snake aversion. Remove the tails or make them hairy, and people don’t mind them nearly as much…consider the gerbil! One must respect rats; they’ve even survived nuclear testing at the Bikini Islands!
Explore posts in the same categories: animals, anomalies, furry, scienceTags: giant rats, rats
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FOXSYLVANIA 
July 11, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Ah, yes! The classic story “Graveyard Shift” (from the nearly-eponymous anthology NIGHT SHIFT). For some reason, however, the screenwrights for the feature film version decided to make the chief monster into a giant bat!*
*Mutated, perhaps, by the same mercury-based algicide used in the 1970’s eco-thriller PROPHECY?
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July 12, 2008 at 1:59 pm
–“Graveyard Shift!”–Thank you for recalling that title! Sadly, a lot of Stephen King (with a few exceptions) hasn’t translated well to the big screen.
Let us also remember the cheesy {?} rat-epics “Willard” and “Ben,” with a young Michael Jackson singing the title song, “Ben!” 😉
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