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truth about giant sewer rats? (1 Viewer)

scuba0095

Well-known member
Hello

I have head claims by MANY MANY people whitnessing giant sewer (wharf, or brown rats another name for them)


Many people claim that they can never get to a house cat size yet so many people have said they have seen/killed rats the size of cats. I have looked and looked but never able to find an answer to this.

HAs anyone here had experience with giant overgrown monster rats??? I think a lot of the time people see a muskrat or a gopher and shreek ITS A HUGE RAT! But someone who knows animals well should not make a foolish mistake. I for one have only seen small wild rats and i have seen big rats but they were muskrats which are almost entirly aquatic.
 
scuba0095 said:
Hello

I have head claims by MANY MANY people whitnessing giant sewer (wharf, or brown rats another name for them)


Many people claim that they can never get to a house cat size yet so many people have said they have seen/killed rats the size of cats. I have looked and looked but never able to find an answer to this.

HAs anyone here had experience with giant overgrown monster rats??? I think a lot of the time people see a muskrat or a gopher and shreek ITS A HUGE RAT! But someone who knows animals well should not make a foolish mistake. I for one have only seen small wild rats and i have seen big rats but they were muskrats which are almost entirly aquatic.

They don't exist scuba. I used to control rabbits on an ICI site near my home. As I was walking between warrens my dogs marked a drain running underneath the footpath. I put a purse net over each end of the pipe and slipped a ferret in. She quickly backed out with a cut on her face and her fur 'bottled' up. So I took out a huge hob (male) ferret I had and slipped him in. Something shot out into the net and my lurcher killed it (he'd just have held a rabbit alive). It was the only rat I've ever seen that could 'purse' a rabbit net - normally they just skip through the netting. Biggest rat I've ever seen, but it certainly wasn't the size of a cat!

Brian Plummer (who killed thousands upon thousands of rats) describes a huge rat in 'Tales of a Rat Hunting Man' but, again, that wasn't really huge. You'll find that almost no-one just sees a rat - they always see a huge one!

saluki
 
More evidence is the fact that captive rats never grow that big, even when given ideal growing conditions. A friend used to have a pet rat that she pampered with food like it was a lapdog. It was truly gross and so fat that it could hardly walk. However, it was just a normal sized rat underneath with a load of fat hanging on either side. If anyone really did catch a cat-sized rat I'm sure there would be photos around.

Tom
 
IF we could please keep the posts serious that would be great because this has really been bugging me for a long time (storyies of giant sewer rats) and i hate to have this thread turned into a big joke :C
 
Last edited:
"IF we could please keep the posts serious that would be great because this has really been bugging me for a long time (stories of giant sewer rats) and i hate to have this thread turned into a big joke"

You will probably find that man has the knack of exaggerating in relationship to things seen. Bit like the old fisherman's tales. (It was huge, but I lost it!!)

One thing interesting which is happening in the U.K. for a few years now, there is now a trend for re-cycling household waste. Prior to this, there was a tendency for waste to go into landfill. This meant, that within the sewers, there was very little food available for sewer living rats. We now have local councils telling us to rinse out all food containers (bottles, tins, plastic containers etc) prior to segregation for re-cycling. This in itself is adding more food sources to the sewer system. Up until now, the available levels of food has been one of the controlling factors of the population levels of rats within the sewer systems. This rise in available food levels will in all probability, help to expand the numbers of sewer rats, and with that, other problems MAY follow.

Bubonic plague bacterium Yersinia pestis, which is carried by rats/fleas was rife between the early 1300's and the late 1600's in the U.K. The fluctuation of levels between these dates are well documented. This bacterium still exists today in several parts of the world. Looking at past world-wide temperature rises, (global warming as was then, but in a different guise) coinciding with the outbreak dates affecting European countries, I wonder if there will be a reoccurrence of the past problems with said or similar.
You may yet see Giant Rats yet.

Regards

Malky
 
I used to see some very respectably sized rats on the London Underground back in the 60's: I think the tunnels are kept a lot cleaner these days. But certainly, some of these would have been 45 - 50 cm long.
 
alcedo.atthis said:
Bubonic plague

It was spread by fleas which live exclusively on Brown Rat. Norway Rat, the ordinary kind of rat nowadays, colonised Europe several centuries ago and outcompeted Brown Rat and bubonic plague stopped.

[serious mode off] So, you see, ratties saved lots of peoples lives and we should thank them for that. [serious mode on]

Don't believe in these stories of giant rats, sewer alligators etc.
 
Tranquility Base said:
I used to see some very respectably sized rats on the London Underground back in the 60's: I think the tunnels are kept a lot cleaner these days. But certainly, some of these would have been 45 - 50 cm long.

must be cleaner than '60's ... never seen a rat on underground yet but that's not to say there aren't any .. a morning stroll around my local park can produce a few sightings .. mice on the underground (Bakerloo and Northern lines mainly) are fairly common, even heard talk of them being a now recognisable ssp. though cannot comment on the truth of that ...
 
jurek said:
It was spread by fleas which live exclusively on Brown Rat. Norway Rat, the ordinary kind of rat nowadays, colonised Europe several centuries ago and outcompeted Brown Rat and bubonic plague stopped.

[serious mode off] So, you see, ratties saved lots of peoples lives and we should thank them for that. [serious mode on]

Don't believe in these stories of giant rats, sewer alligators etc.
[pedantic]Sorry to be the niggly arse, but it's the other way round. Rattus rattus (the black rat) carried the fleas that spread plaque. It was/is Rattus norvegicus (the brown rat) that thrived and pushed the black rat out... [/pedantic]

I've heard that there are a few pressure groups trying to get the black rat on the red list as it's numbers are so low!! :eek!:
 
In my late teens (many years ago!!) driving home in my V-Dub in the early morning from a party, I DID see a massive, giant rat. It was huge, easily the size of of small cat. It ran across the road, in front of the the VW's (6 volt) lights, but I clearly saw its bare tail and I swear - it was the size of a cat! But not a cat, definitely a RAT.

So they DO exist - they are not just stories! You're not doubting my id, are you, Mr Bones?? :))



...... well to add to the story, I was in Harare (Zimbabwe) and it was THE African Giant Rat which weighs in at 1.0 - 2.8 kg. I knew about it from books but it was quite a trill to see one alive.

A few years later I was (live) trapping on the Thames for water voles, and also caught the occasional brown rat - never a black rat, ... and never a giant one.

Cheers
 
pete woodall said:
So they DO exist - they are not just stories! You're not doubting my id, are you, Mr Bones?? :))
Not at all Sir! Referring only to the rats indigenous to the UK.
 
No offense intended, and I'm not in the UK. But, having lived in Detroit for a while (Thank God a very short while), I did run into some immense rats. Now, I've seen some truly immense house cats, and I guess it's all subjective, but I've certainly seen rats the size of small house cats. As for pictures of the things? Who would WANT to admit they've ever been in the same neighborhood as the nasty things? I never was tempted to photograph them. But I assure you, I've seen little rats. I've seen barn rats. I've seen domestic rats. And the rats in the dumpsters in Detroit were most assuredly the size of small house cats. We used to joke that you could put a leash on them and pass them off as ugly chihuahuas.
 
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