Scientists have identified a species of rat on the Solomon Islands that has been long known to exist by locals but never studied until recently. The species, the Vangunu giant rat (Uromys vika), is already considered critically endangered:
Locals living on the island of Vangunu in the Solomon Islands sing songs about vika, a giant, tree-dwelling rat that can crack open coconuts with its teeth. But scientists had never seen it.
Tyrone Lavery, a conservation ecologist at The University of Queensland and The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, searched for this rat for years. But the closest he got was a mysterious dropping found on the forest floor that contained the hair of some unidentified species of rodent.
Now the Vanganu Giant Rat is no longer legend, but scientific fact. Hikuna Judge, a ranger at the Zaira Resource Management Area on the island, found an injured specimen scampering away from a felled tree. He and Dr. Lavery reported [open, DOI: 10.1093/jmammal/gyx116] [DX] this new species, Uromys vika, in the Journal of Mammalogy on Wednesday. It's the first new rat species discovered on the islands in about 80 years.
Last year, New York City residents reported more than 17,000 rat sightings, but they can breathe a sigh of relief none were the giant rat of Vangunu. Uromys vika can weigh more than two pounds and stretch up to a foot and a half from nose to tail. Its ears are small, and its feet are wide, to help it maneuver among the branches in the forest canopy where it lives. The rat's smooth tail is particularly special, covered in tiny scales surrounded by large areas of flesh. Think opossum, or squirrel, but more rat, and very, very, rare.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 02 2017, @09:48PM (3 children)
The walk, walk, boom thing wouldn't be very good to anyone. A three pound rodent isn't going to set of the typical land mine. He almost certainly isn't going to set it off after is has sat in the ground, packed in dirt, over a decade or more. It's going to take some real pressure to push the plunger in - at least the weight of a medium sized man. And, if you're a big man, don't make any assumptions after you've seen that medium sized man walk across the field. Maybe his 130 to 160 pounds was almost enough - but your 240 pounds will be enough.
(Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Monday October 02 2017, @11:31PM
Interesting. I hadn't thought about how much variation you'd get in behaviour under different soils and aged firing mechanisms.
Apparently, some mines need as little as 1.5kg (3.3lbs) to set them off:
http://www.care.org/emergencies/facts-about-landmines [care.org]
But penguins don't seem to set off the ones in the Falklands http://web.mit.edu/demining/assignments/understanding-landmines.pdf [mit.edu]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 02 2017, @11:32PM (1 child)
So fat people can render a humanitarian service by detecting landmines?
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday October 03 2017, @02:37PM
Only if you clean up afterward.