HARROW: A significant haul of fossils in East Timor has revealed seven new giant rat species, one of which was ten times the size of modern rats.
The rat species found were said to be up to 10 times the size of modern rats, equivalent to a small dog.
They are the largest known rats to exist, according to Julien Louys of the ANU School of Culture, History and Language.
Discovered by researchers at Australian National University (ANU) these rats were a part of mega-fauna group with a few weighing as many as 5 kilos. A modern rat typically weighs just over a pound.
Researchers were actually looking at the traces of earliest human arrival in Southeast Asia when they stumbled across the ancient rat fossils in East Timor.
Researchers say one of the most interesting aspects of the rats is how scientists suspect they died out – and the implications that could have for life today.
“One of the things we’re finding is it’s not the presence of human hunters using traditional weapons that’s causing the extinctions of these giant rats”, he said. In another hand, he is holding the same bone of a modern rat for comparison.
Humans lived alongside these rats for thousands of years and probably even ate them.
Humans and large rats co-existed in East Timor for a thousands of years until the rats became extinct. “Once we know what was there before humans got there, we will see what type of impact they had”. The fossil findings were presented at the Meetings of the Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology in Texas.
