Giant Coconut-Gnawing Rat Captured Alive On Camera For First Time

People generally fall into one of two camps: rats are cute…or rats are decidedly not cute. But everyone should be able to agree that photos of an extremely rare giant rat are pretty fascinating. The images captured on the island of Vangunu in the Solomon Islands have given researchers a valuable glimpse into the secret world of a critically endangered animal.

Uromys vika is only known to live on Vangunu. It’s so rare, scientists first described it in 2017 after a years-long search. Mammalogist Tyrone Lavery and colleagues originally sought out the rat based on rumors and conversations with locals. The species description was based on a single specimen that died after leaving a tree felled during commercial logging activities.

While researchers took a while to scientifically document the giant rat, the animals have been well-known to Solomon Islands residents. The rats feature in songs and children’s rhymes. “It’s the first rat discovered in 80 years from Solomons, and it’s not like people haven’t been trying—it was just so hard to find,” Lavery said in a 2017 statement from the Field Museum.

If you’re rat-averse, you might want to skip the physical details of Uromys vika. The rodent weighs in at over 2 pounds and stretches about 18 inches in length from nose to tail tip. The rodent of unusual size has a reputation for chewing through coconuts, which shows just how tough its teeth are. It also lives in trees like a possum.

Lavery led a new study on the rats published in November in the journal Ecology and Evolution. The photos show four different individuals crawling around at night. Lavery called the images “extremely positive news” in a University of Melbourne statement on November 21. It proves the species persists in a shrinking habitat area, though the total population of the rats is unknown.

The researchers captured 95 images, which now stand as the first ever photographic documentation of living specimens of Uromys vika. The camera traps were successful thanks to the guidance of locals on the study team who selected camera sites based on knowledge of the rats and their habitat. Glass lamps filled with sesame oil turned out to be an effective lure.

The forests of Vangunu have already been heavily impacted by logging. The giant rat, known locally as vika, lives in a lowland forest near a community called Zaira. “Logging consent has been granted at Zaira, and if it proceeds it will undoubtedly lead to extinction of the Vangunu giant rat,” said Lavery. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has listed the rat as critically endangered in its Red List of Threatened Species, a catalog of species and their conservation statuses. That’s one step away from being extinct in the wild.

It’s one thing to talk about a rare animal. It’s another to see visual proof of its existence and lifestyle. Said Lavery, “We hope that these images of U. vika will support efforts to prevent the extinction of this threatened species, and help improve its conservation status.”

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