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

Originally posted by followtheevidence
Really? A pitchfork. That's barbaric.

Well its better dead than alive.
What would you rather that this rat comes into your home and kills your child just like the one's did in South Africa as in Ben81's post .?????
Quiet frankly im sick of people such as your self that would rather a human die for the sake of an animal.

Go eat your lettuce.

I was talking to a builder who had been doing some renovation work at Oxford University and they were breeding cows that were twice the size of normal cows,

I think its just a pet rat that escaped or was let go

Originally posted by meathed

Originally posted by followtheevidence
Really? A pitchfork. That's barbaric.

Well its better dead than alive.
What would you rather that this rat comes into your home and kills your child just like the one's did in South Africa as in Ben81's post .?????
Quiet frankly im sick of people such as your self that would rather a human die for the sake of an animal.

Go eat your lettuce.

Whoa dude. Chill. Did I say anything about wanting a child to die? I said no such thing. You are the one who introduced that into this conversation.

I just commented on the brutality of death by pitchfork. Goodness.

Damn that is huge i think they are just getting bigger and bigger

I wonder what they taste like?
a dirty chicken?

Originally posted by Lil Drummerboy
I wonder what they taste like?
a dirty chicken?

Another question to ponder....

If God is everything, and everything tastes like chicken, does that make Spam the anti-christ?

When rodents revert back to Jurrasic times size, trouble maybbe 'a coming.

Originally posted by meathed

Originally posted by followtheevidence
Really? A pitchfork. That's barbaric.

Well its better dead than alive.
What would you rather that this rat comes into your home and kills your child just like the one's did in South Africa as in Ben81's post .?????
Quiet frankly im sick of people such as your self that would rather a human die for the sake of an animal.

Go eat your lettuce.

Dude, take a deep breath, and relax. No one is even bothered by your rant, relax...

Large rodents don't kill humans except by passing on diseases, and they don't pass on diseases any more than your typical rat.

There are traps large enough to kill rats like that, they're just not snap traps (your typical snap traps that you buy in the hardware store).

Originally posted by ravenshadow13
Large rodents don't kill humans except by passing on diseases, and they don't pass on diseases any more than your typical rat.

There are traps large enough to kill rats like that, they're just not snap traps (your typical snap traps that you buy in the hardware store).

edit on 8/27/2011 by ravenshadow13 because: clarification

I think bear traps would be more appropriate to capture something like that.

I would be curious to see DNA sequencing and compare it to other rats to see the difference to account for size.

Wow, that's actually bigger than my Westie. Glad I've not seen any that big over here, don't think my car could handle running over them!

reply to post by Xcathdra


Maybe a snare... honestly, someone would probably just shoot it to collect it.

Sequencing wouldn't specifically say "wow, this rat is huge." It may show close relationships to other Cricetomys (en.wikipedia.org...). Finding differences in genetic sequences to account for size differences isn't really cut and dry. It probably has to do with some endocrine differences, which you can figure out through sequencing if you tried hard enough.

It's already been sequenced, actually. Cricetomys is a pretty common genus.

Here's a sequence: www.ebi.ac.uk...

And here's the voucher: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...