The rat world is full of surprises – with some that contains enough poison to kill an elephant and others that can remain fertile for 30 years.
From coconut-cracking rats in the Solomon Islands to rats with surprisingly long pubic hair in Indonesia, these are some of the weirdest – and most interesting – rats in the world.
The weirdest rats
Gambian pouched rat (Cricetomys gambianus)
It turns out, the rats we see in the UK are pretty small fry in the grand scheme of things. The world’s biggest rat (in terms of length) is the African native Gambian pouched rat (Cricetomys gambianus), with a body size of 43cm and a tail measuring a further 45cm – 88cm in total – weighing an average of 1.3kg.
Maned rat (Lophiomys imhausi)
The maned rat – which also goes by the name of the crested rat (or the African crested rat) – is considered to be the only poisonous rat. It’s also the only known mammal to sequest plant toxins for use as a defence mechanism.
Sumatran bamboo rat (Rhizomys sumatrensis)
If the length of the Gambian pouched rat didn’t alarm you enough, let’s introduce you to the Sumatran bamboo rat – the heaviest rat on the planet. Its body, measuring 50cm, weighs a whopping 3.9kg.
Naked mole-rat (Heterocephalus glaber)
The naked male rat is an unusual creature: it’s the world’s only cold-blooded mammal and can survive 18 minutes without oxygen and feel no pain. They also live like insects, with colonies ruled by a single breeding queen which produces dozens of offspring several times a year.
Fascinatingly, the naked mole rat also defies ageing and disease. While mice live to around four years of age, naked mole rats can live up to 30, remaining fertile until the end.
Vangunu Giant Rat (Uromys vika)
The Vangunu Giant Rat is a recent discovery for researchers, who caught one on camera for the first time in just 2023. It is only found on the small island of Vanganu in the Solomon Islands, off the north-east coast of Australia. It’s about twice the size of the average city-dwelling rat, and it can chew through coconuts with its razor-sharp teeth.
They’re extremely shy around humans, making them particularly difficult to trace. Their existence came onto researchers’ radar in 2015, when one was found dead. In 2017, it was formally identified as a species.
Hog-nosed shrew rat (Hyorhinomys stuempkei)
When this new species of rat was discovered in Indonesia in 2015, researchers were interested in its distinct and unique features, which they found to be uncommon in other rats. It has a hog-like nose, with a long face and ears that are significantly bigger than they’d expect to find in a shrew rat like this. It also has pubic hairs that are much more long and extended than those found on other mammals.
