Giant Rat !!!

Okay im a little freaked out by this i am not a big fan of rats especially ones the size of fricking cats!

My friend James and i were walking our dogs in the woods both of our dogs are fairly large i have a collie/retriever and he has an alsation so they are both quite large, when we seen what appeared to be a giant rat run right passed us i mean it was huge im no expert on rats but im pretty sure they are not meant to be this big it honestly must have been the size of a cat, but it scared the Crap out of us, our dogs went wild when they seen it it was difficult to control them, its safe to say we left straight away!

a couple of years ago in my town there was quite a few cats and dogs killed in those woods do you think these could be linked somehow?

if it wasnt a rat what could it have been as i live in Scotland and havent heard about anything resembling a rat like that did,

but anyone got any ideas?

[Edited on 29-4-2004 by John bull 1]

I live in NYC...and believe me...we have plenty of rats thats size....i doubt the rats killed any of them...rats generally run away at the site of animals...even our human friendly city rats...

Well thats what is confusing me , i have seen rats before but this was huge i mean it was the size of a cat! it is pretty rare in Scotland i mean how did it get that big! if there is one there is bound to be others.

Im grateful for your reply its much apprecited.

Yeah, I've seen them that big here and I'm in Michigan, US. Could it be that maybe you've just honestly never heard of humungoid rats before which is why it's surprising? I must admit they're not a hot topic of discussion lol.

LOL maybe my country is just a bit cleaner than the good old U S of A!

Well they are entirley new to my here in Bonnie (clean ) Scotland lol im only a small town boy so i havent seen many rats round here,

just thought id get some ideas as to how they get this big you know from people who might actually reply instead of saying how common they are over there and how its not a hot topic, well its new to me so i thought i would ask,

cheers!

perhaps it was a giant african pouched rat that escaped from some lab somewhere?? or someone got one imported and it escaped

news.bbc.co.uk...

the one in the picture looks pretty big.


and what about these rats!!
homepage.ntlworld.com...

mara or gambian pouch rats get up to 3 foot long !!!!!

perhaps what you saw was just a normal rat with some sort of hormone problem?????

Wow, Hunter, I wasn't attacking you. I was being friendly, sorry I didn't answer the question the way you desired.

Lol sorry Sara it wasnt meant to quite sound like that lol i was just teasing, im grateful for the replies cheers very much! im just not very good with words lol

[Edited on 29-4-2004 by Hunter 825]

Hmm... I've not seen anything that big. I live in Georgia USA. I have seen a barn with rats swarming all over the barn before when I was little. i'm talking rats running up the walls and on the roof! Really Freaky!

s'alright Hunter, I just didn't wanna make any enemies, this is a fun place.

Thats why I pointed out the location Chicken... I'm not even in Detroit which is a big city, and I've seen them. They aren't incredibly common unless you live in a big city, but for cases such as this, I figured I'd use it as an example. As for how they got that way... all I can say is nature, lol.

my neighbor brought home a dog from south america, well atleast what they thought was a little dog. it killed and started eating there other little dog that had been in the family approaching twenty years. they took their new dog to the vet and he told them it was a rat, but that it was not native to the part of south america they visited.



be careful. its a strange and violent world.

I saw one in a farm once near Bosworth, UK. I have never seen one that big before or since. It was when I was driving past a pig farm that had been quarantined for some reason or another (not foot & mouth - this was in 2000). It ran across the road and disappeared into the bushes at the other side.

When I was in Bombay once, I heard some yelping on a street, and saw a small dog being chased by a pack of rats.

Maybe it was a opossum. I see one of these every few days on my paper route. They definitely get as big as cats. The tails make them look like giant rats. I've looked at a dead one and they have some nasty razor teeth.

If it was one of these, they kind of hobble when they run. Like they have a gimp or something. Or a fat little dog.

hey i like possums, but they aint even close to a rat. oppossums are cool the only marsupial in north armerican continent. well it were'nt a possum not my story '' least. at the waco zoo the other day a pretty lady had real tame 'possum. i dont think they're uglu at all like most folks do. but rodents are different story. hey squirells aint nothin' but tree rats yo!


feel ya. rock on.


[Edited on 4/29/2004 by panchovilla]

Originally posted by BasementAddix
I live in NYC...and believe me...we have plenty of rats thats size....i doubt the rats killed any of them...rats generally run away at the site of animals...even our human friendly city rats...

Oh hell yeah! I live in Brooklyn but out of all the rats ive seen never seen any that big.

Maybe the rats youve seen just ate a lot? That could epxlain the size

Was it definitely a rat or could it have been a mole?

They can grow up to a foot long and the look like a rat.
What color was it?
How long was the tail?

It is possible you saw a Nutria Rat. I saw one on the river here once that was about 4 feet long. I also ran across a Nutria that was nothing more than a carcuss next to a well known hobo camp. It was about 5 feet long but it consisted of a head, tail, and nothing in between but some bone, in other words carved up and ate over the campfire I discovered a few feet away. The border jumpers here will eat them when they are hungry.


www.nutria.com...


Look at this and see if it matches what you saw.

Well it might be possible. I recommend you and some friends go purchase some combat shotguns, flamethrowers, poison tipped arrows + crossbow and heatseakin gogles. Next go into that forest with some hunting dogs and hunt down every single rat you can find. But this also reminds me of the circus. They had a giant rat. They had pictures of a giant hideous rat outside. Ok I go inside and its a gueinia pig about the size of a small cat.