Flores Giant Rat
Encyclopedia
The Flores Giant Rat is a rodent of the family Muridae
Muridae
Muridae is the largest family of mammals. It contains over 600 species found naturally throughout Eurasia, Africa, and Australia. They have been introduced worldwide. The group includes true mice and rats, gerbils, and relatives....

 that occurs on the island of Flores
Flores
Flores is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, an island arc with an estimated area of 14,300 km² extending east from the Java island of Indonesia. The population was 1.831.000 in the 2010 census and the largest town is Maumere. Flores is Portuguese for "flowers".Flores is located east of Sumbawa...

 in Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

. It is found in primary, secondary and disturbed forest over a wide range of elevations. Head and body length is 41–45 cm (16.1–17.7 in.) and tail length is 33–70 cm (13–27.5 in.), making the Flores giant rat at least twice the size of an average Brown Rat
Brown Rat
The brown rat, common rat, sewer rat, Hanover rat, Norway rat, Brown Norway rat, Norwegian rat, or wharf rat is one of the best known and most common rats....

 (Rattus norvegicus) with a 25 cm long body and 15 cm long tail. It is the only extant species in the genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 Papagomys
Papagomys
Papagomys is a genus of very large rats in the tribe Rattini of the subfamily Murinae. It contains two species, which are known only from the Indonesian island of Flores:*Flores Giant Rat Papagomys armandvillei...

.

Guy Musser
Guy Musser
Guy Graham Musser is an American zoologist. His main research field is the subfamily Murinae, in which he has described many new species.Musser was born in Salt Lake City, Utah...

 describes the rats as having small, round ears, a chunky body and a small tail, and that the giant rat of Flores appears to be adapted for life on the ground and refuge in burrows. The rat has dense dark hair (pelage). Analysis of the teeth of the Flores Giant Rat suggests that the rat has a diet of leaves, buds, fruit, and certain kinds of insect as inferred by large hypsodont
Molar (tooth)
Molars are the rearmost and most complicated kind of tooth in most mammals. In many mammals they grind food; hence the Latin name mola, "millstone"....

 teeth.

P. armandvillei is listed as Near Threatened
Near Threatened
Near Threatened is a conservation status assigned to species or lower taxa that may be considered threatened with extinction in the near future, although it does not currently qualify for the threatened status...

 by the IUCN Red List
IUCN Red List
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species , founded in 1963, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature is the world's main authority on the conservation status of species...

. Threats include subsistence hunting and predation by dogs and cats. A related species, P. theodorverhoeveni
Verhoeven's Giant Tree Rat
Verhoeven's Giant Tree Rat is an extinct rat of subfamily Murinae that lived on Flores in Indonesia. It was assessed as being extinct in 1996. However, experts believed that it died out before 1500 AD. The species is known only from several subfossil fragments. It was named after Dutch priest...

, is known from subfossil
Subfossil
Subfossil refers to remains whose fossilization process is not complete, either for lack of time or because the conditions in which they were buried were not optimal for fossilization....

 remains from 3,000 – 4,000 years ago. This species is presumed to be extinct, but may still exist on the island.
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