Aussie boffin turns up REAL root-rat

If the newly-documented forest-dwelling rat happens to be an omnivore whose diet includes roots and it's described by an Australian-led team, of course it will get called a “root rat”. The “discovery” (I put it in scare-quotes because locals already knew about the creature – they led the biologists to it) was made by Museum …

[Anonymous Coward]

30cm long rodent

and weighs less than 2oz?

3 times the lenght of a domestic mouse and half the weight?

Lives up to its name them as "slender". More like a bloody racing snake.

Methinks someones scales might have been measuring too much bolivian marching powder.

[imanidiot]

Re: 30cm long rodent

I suspect most of that length would be the tail though. And mice are usually quite fat little creatures.

[Brux Antipodeus]

40g

Forty grams????? RATS!

[Herbert Meyer]

The Giant Rat of Sumatra !

Is REAL ! Conan Doyle was right !

[x 7]

google translated from https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gracilimus_radix

"Rodent of small dimensions , with the length of the head and of the body between 108 and 125 mm, the length of the tail between 151 and 163 mm, the length of the foot between 28 and 30 mm, the length of the ears 13 to 14 mm and a weight up to 45 g"

[Bluto Nash]

Technically a ROUS

But at the other end of the ROUS spectrum, obviously.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOv5ZjAOpC8