Giant rat killed by pitchfork in Marcy Houses is believed to be Gambian pouched rat (3 feet long)

Giant rat killed by pitchfork in Marcy Houses is believed to be Gambian pouched rat

It sounds like an urban legend: giant mutant-looking rats roaming a city housing project.

Only there's a picture.

A photo making the rounds shows Housing Authority worker Jose Rivera minutes after he speared the humongous rodent with a pitchfork at the Marcy Houses.

It's covered in white fur and looks well-fed. It appears to be about three feet long, including its hideously dangling tail.

And Rivera, 48, says it's not the only one. He insists that while he was filling a rat hole last week, three came running out - but he was only able to nail one.

"I hit it one time and it was still moving," Rivera said. "I hit it another time and that's when it died. I'm not scared of rats but I was scared of being bitten."

Naomi Colon, head of the Marcy Houses Tenant Association, said there have been sightings of the outsize rat for at least six years.

"The residents have told me that they've seen it running around with other rats. She lived with them. She ran into the same hole they ran in."

Animal experts who viewed the picture identified the animal as a Gambian pouched rat, which is a fairly common pet rat.

They're nocturnal, can grow to three feet and four pounds or more, and live seven or eight years.

Imports have been banned since 2003, when they were blamed for a monkeypox outbreak that sickened 100 people in the United States.

Dr. Paul Calle, director of zoological health at the Wildlife Conservation Society, said the Marcy Houses specimen was probably an escaped or discarded pet who decided to join the regular rat race.


Read more: www.nydailynews.com...

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Another good reason to have animal control instead of a gun. Who would just shoot it anyway.

Originally posted by Hillbilly123069
Another good reason to have animal control instead of a gun. Who would just shoot it anyway.

no doubt....

I think we need to release some more alligators into the system to take care of the oversize rat population. This is up there with the bunny rabbiits in germany that were like 3-4 feet.

Has anyone else ever seen a rat this size, and if so is it common? I have never come across / seen a rat that large. Seeing animals become that large makes one stop and think that maybe humans messing around with animal genes, splicing and dicing, might not be the best idea after all.

Thoughts?

On a side note I for one welcome our new Rat overlords.

Taco Bell lost another rat from their meat farm.
That's the 2nd I've seen this size killed in the past week.

That's the first 4 foot wide pitchfork i've ever seen.

That's not a rat!

It's a, it's a Chupacabra!

Proof the Chupacabra lives!

OMG - BAT RAT !!!!!

"The residents have told me that they've seen it running around with other rats. She lived with them. She ran into the same hole they ran in."

its the brain-rat like in starship troopers

poor little guy, he might be from an endangered specie.

Animal experts who viewed the picture identified the animal as a Gambian pouched rat, which is a fairly common pet rat.

Common WHERE? I have been alot of places and seen alot of big rats but that takes the cake
I wonder what it tastes like?

Originally posted by citizen6511
poor little guy, he might be from an endangered specie.

Endangered, not endangered, long lost and rediscovered or just your common everyday animal, one thing is for certain.....

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we need to create even bigger domesticated cats to fight these rats.

any sane cat would run away from a rat that size.

edit;

"Even the cats are afraid of the rats. They get together and gang up on the cats, said resident Stephanie Davis, 44.

reply to post by Grey Magic


Already done... 4 feet long and shaggy...

I bet the furballs this thing hacks up are insane...

4 foot Domesticated cat.

Obesity is everywhere in the US.

www.stuff.co.nz...

Now even the rats are catching up in the stats.

These rats are probably the chupacabra people see sometime .. ..they are big and have big teeth
they can kill anything defenseless

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WARNING.. shocking details below ..you have been warned !

Giant rat being blamed for a series of attacks on children.
The monster rodents as big as cats are believed to have killed two babies in South Africa's squalid townships.

The giant rats grow up to three-foot including their tails - and have front teeth over an INCH long.

Three-year-old Lunathi Dwadwa was killed as she slept in her parent's shack in a slum outside Cape Town this week.

Another baby girl died in a similar rat attack, on the same day, but this time in the Soweto township near Johannesburg.

Little Lunathi was sleeping on a makeshift bed on the floor of her family's breeze block and corrugated iron home on Sunday night when she died.

Her distraught mother discovered her lifeless body and said her daughter's eyes had been gouged out.

Bukiswa Dwadwa, 27, said: "I can't forget how ugly my child looked after her eyes were ripped out.

"She was eaten from her eyebrows to her cheeks, her other eye was hanging by a piece of flesh."

Her father Mncedisi Mokoena said police told him: "Nothing could have done that but rats"

Today police revealed the second baby girl died in the Soweto township when she was attacked by rats while her teenage mother was out with friends.

Damn this is a sad story .. maybe that rat was ungry .. unfortunatly this is the ugly side of nature
like in the animal world .. babies are always the first targeted sadly .. because they are defenseless
you NEVER let a baby unprotected .. (bed with bars)

cannot imagine having a 3 feet rat big like a dog in front of your screen right now
just the though scared me a bit
would prefer a racoon anytime over a rat big like these ones

KING RAT Shock photo of giant rodent blamed for child attacks

That's not all that surprising. Rodents can be big. Really big.

Capybaras are huge. Up to 140 pounds (according to Wiki). The Gambian pouched rat is the largest muroid rodent, though. Capybaras are more closely related to porcupines, agoutis, and other things than to "mice and rats".

I think the Bronx Zoo has a cool graphic comparing different rodent sizes in its rodent hall. I can't find a jpeg or anything of it. TONS of pictures of that cobra that escaped, however.

lookslike the rats we had at the place i used to work at haha those things were huge

I live on a farm and ive seen a few rats in my day but never have i seen a rat this size ..This makes my skin crawl yuck...peace sugarcookie1

Really? A pitchfork. That's barbaric.

Thats one big freaky rat.
It reminds me of the R.O.U.S (Rodents of Unusal Size) from that great book and movie The Princess Bride.
Well we're lucking that this time the hero had a 4ft wide pitch fork and not only a sword and fire to kill this R.O.U.S with.
Lucky this thing was killed before it had any chance to kill a child like they did in the post Ben81 posted.

Anyway, I cant wait to see the size of the Rat Traps they will start making to catch and kill these thing