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Looks like the Gambian pouched rat is here to stay!
Last fall, a gigantic three foot long rat was killed with a pitchfork in Brooklyn's Marcy Projects. Now another colossal squeaker has been found, apparently in the stock room of a Foot Locker store in New York City.The picture which went viral on Twitter and Facebook shows a dead rat which seems to be about two and a half feet long, draped across a shovel. The rat, clearly a male, appears to have died peacefully in its sleep, perhaps of old age. (Okay - maybe it ate some rat poison.)
Ordinarily a photo like this would raise red flags about trickery. In particular, the way the shovel is being held forward might raise concerns about "forced perspective." This is the same "I'm crushing your head" trick people use to make it look as though they are holding the Leaning Tower of Pisa on their hand, or whatever. However, it is almost certainly real, and almost certainly a Gambian pouched rat. The Gambian pouched rat is the world's largest rat species, native to the country of Gambia.
In Gambia it is sometimes kept as a pet, and is considered to be as intelligent and trainable as a dog. In fact, many Gambian pouched rats have been successfully trained to detect unexploded land mines. The rats are better suited for this job than dogs, because their sense of smell is just as strong, but their lighter bodies are much less likely to set off the land mines by accident.
Gambian pouched rats were once legal to import into the United States, where they were kept by exotic animal fanciers looking for the latest new pet. However, they have since been banned, due to the threat of monkeypox. A brief monkeypox outbreak in the mid 2000s affected Gambian pouched rats and pocket gophers, and spread to several human patients. With the potential to become as widespread and as dangerous as chicken pox (if not smallpox), the CDC took swift action to break the chain of communication.
Unfortunately, it seems that in the meantime, some pet Gambian pouched rats escaped and found a new home in the sewers and alleyways of New York City. These critters are as resourceful and prolific as regular brown or Norway rats, but several times larger.
New York, long the home of fabled giant rats, is really going to start living up to its reputation! It seems likely that the Gambian pouched rat has found a permanent toe-hold in the city, and it is unlikely that it will ever be fully exterminated. Along with New York's regular rats, mice, silverfish, cockroaches, and bed bugs, the Gambian pouched rat is now, alas, a true New Yorker!
Image credit: Twitpic/@TheGoodfella_
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