Oh, that's no giant rat, that's just Pancho who's escaped again. Where did you say they found him? Indonesia? Well, he'd better be home by Christmas, or we'll start dinner without him! *LOL*
But seriously: That sure is a giant rat, if it is indeed a rattus species. She (or he?) does look rather fluffy and cudly, but I don't think my living room could house a cage large enough for 4 of these (assuming they are as social as their smaller cousins).
P.S.: Pancho wants me to tell you he's not "a bit bigger", "so spoiled" nor "huge", he's just well fed. 
I think they are expecting it to be from the genus Mallomys. I wish I'd paid better attention in biology...that would make the giant rat as related to our guys as a mouse is related, right?
Still, it's pretty cool. I wish they'd publish more pictures.
(Oh, and I saw one article that gave the typical weight of a brown rat at 300 grams. Last time we checked, Oliver was 827!)
Hi Tale,
Maybe Pancho is just "big boned", really. 
I don't know if it's a rattus species. Unfortunately, they didn't give much more info on them.
I think they look awfully similar to our ratties, and are quite cute. If I could, I might get 1 or 2.
Hi Abita,
Wow, that's cool you know the genus. We learned very little of that in my biology class. Mostly we stared at water under the microscope.
Oliver is a big boy too! You and Tale have some hefty ratties. Rat was my heaviest and she only got to about 480 grams. Almost 900 grams, wow.
I'm going to look and see if there's more pictures out there of this guy.
Oh, I didn't know about the genus, I just saw it in some of the news stories.
One was the NY Times blog. I'm going to have to try the videos mentioned in the comments there now!
I checked out the 60 Minutes video...be forewarned if you look at it, I don't think the rat they showed was still among the living. :-(
Thanks, for the heads-up Abita. I checked it out, and it was good to be warned. Poor rattie. 
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