Giant rats in UK

[Tricky]

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Strange-News/Rat-Giant-Rodent-Shot-Dead-On-Bradford-Estate-Creature-Could-Be-Descendent-Of-Coypu-Species/Article/201008315696471?lpos=Strange_News_Carousel_Region_ 3&lid=ARTICLE_15696471_Rat%3A_Giant_Rodent_Shot_Dead _On_Bradford_Estate%3A_Creature_Could_Be_Descenden t_Of_Coypu_Species

Bloody hell the size on that thing! Didnt James Herbert write a book about these once :eek:

[AcesandEights]

Maybe it's time to revise the old Coypu European distribution map...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7d/Nutria-Europe.gif

Chalk one up on the Big Board for that old Green and Pleasant Land.

I would actually liked to have seen a better picture of the head of the dead vermin to see if it really looks like a Coypu or not.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Myocastor_coypus_-_Biberratte_Albino.jpg

Awww....

[bassman]

Who goes hunting for rats with a gun?:lol:

[Danny]

i expected someone had photographed a rat king. i am dissapoint.

-on the topic of rodents im staying at my grandparents right now in a village that used to be in the middle of the woods by a quarry, now there garden is the only place with trees over 9 feet tall since all the house estates bought up the land and destroyed it with truf and plants that lasted a week in the clay based soil round here.
-anyway, our garden is the last little patch fo woodland so naturally birds, lizards and snakes and a few rabbits stay her during certain seasons. no we a baby squirells moved in and the nieghbours are campaigning for it to be found and killed because it is vermin.
When the fuck did squirells become vermin? and why aren't seagulls? :lol:

[AcesandEights]

Who goes hunting for rats with a gun?:lol:

Britain's best & brightest usually use a magnifying glass for their giant rodent hunts.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/19/FT_totgros.jpg

[DubiousComforts]

Hopefully the zombie fungus will stick with ants and not start infecting giant rats.

[Legion2213]

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Strange-News/Rat-Giant-Rodent-Shot-Dead-On-Bradford-Estate-Creature-Could-Be-Descendent-Of-Coypu-Species/Article/201008315696471?lpos=Strange_News_Carousel_Region_ 3&lid=ARTICLE_15696471_Rat%3A_Giant_Rodent_Shot_Dead _On_Bradford_Estate%3A_Creature_Could_Be_Descenden t_Of_Coypu_Species

Bloody hell the size on that thing! Didnt James Herbert write a book about these once :eek:


He wrote a trilogy. :cool:

I read them all when I was about 13 or 14, absolutely loved the series.

[Tricky]

I've seen a real coypu at a wildlife park over here & they dont really look anything like the rat found in bradford, although the photo we've seen doesnt really show much as its all wet & you cant see its head.

I remember back in my farming days I was jet washing a farrowing house out on a pig unit, and I cornered an adult rat in there, it let out this awful screeching sound & then leapt toward my head, I crapped myself & instinctively swung the shovel I had in my hand & hit it in mid air before killing it. I dont like killing things, but rats are a big problem on farms so the general thing is that if you see one you should kill it. It made my skin crawl that it screeched and jumped at me though, it will have been trying to get past me rather than attack me, but it was still horrid :eek: I'd hate one of those giant ones to jump at me like that!

[AcesandEights]

I remember back in my farming days I was jet washing a farrowing house out on a pig unit, and I cornered an adult rat in there, it let out this awful screeching sound & then leapt toward my head, I crapped myself & instinctively swung the shovel I had in my hand & hit it in mid air before killing it.

Jesus! I'd have shit myself, as well I think. Good thing you clocked it before it got to you. The very idea of a rat leaping at a person is freaky as hell to me.

[MinionZombie]

If I'd shot something like that I'd have photos by the dozen of it, and a ruddy video of it too.

If that thing is real, and not a hoax, then RUDDY NORA! :eek:

If anything like that came heading for me I'd bloomin' well shit myself. The idea that animals are thinking creatures, but you can't communicate with them properly, or really know what they're about to do kinda freaks me out ... suspicious bastards. :D

We once saw a rat outside our backdoor off campus snuffling around a pizza box which someone had put out with some crust still in it (duh...:rolleyes:) and we all went nuts grabbing sticks and poles like cavemen to try and kill it - naturally it was off like a shot, and it was only a "normal" rat ... thankfully it was a normal rat! :lol:

[MikePizzoff]

Who goes hunting for rats with a gun?:lol:

There are people that get paid to do it in the US. The nutria. Texas, Louisiana, Florida, GEORGIA, and a couple other states. Texans are the most profound.

[bassman]

There are people that get paid to do it in the US. The nutria. Texas, Louisiana, Florida, GEORGIA, and a couple other states. Texans are the most profound.

http://palmgoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/the_more_you_know2.jpg

Now i'm going to set out some rat traps and poison....

[Tricky]

Yeah plenty of people go hunting for rats with air rifles in the UK. Poison is ok, but some strains of rat have got immune to it, and theres also the danger (which happened with a terrier we had when I was a kid) that pets will eat the poisoned rat carcasses & end up dying or seriously ill themselves.

[BotOZombie]

I live in Bradford and drive by Ravenscliffe every week day to get to work. I think I may have to do my car out like Dead Reckoning just to be safe.

[Publius]

Rodents of unusual size? I don't believe they exist.

[MoonSylver]

Rodents of unusual size? I don't believe they exist.

http://www.anycostume.co.uk/images/6101-Rat.jpg

[Wyldwraith]

Rat hunting?

Sure. Killed in excess of 7,500 by the time I was 12. Shoot them in the head with a pellet from a pellet rifle to stun them, then give them a good stomp. (copper beebees don't seem to have the same effect as the little lead hourglass-shaped pellets).

The real diehard kids I knew used the heavy-duty slingshots to hunt the bastards at the local dump/landfill. Screw that. Gotta get close enough they could rush you, or their fleas could jump on and bite you with a slingshot.

Yes, Florida 18 years ago was a savage backward place. If you didn't live in the Panhandle or South Florida areas, you were in the mostly undeveloped middle full of legions of creepy-crawlies. My stepdad used to give me 10$ for every Armadillo I killed with a .22 when I was 14-15. THAT'S HARD. Bastards are the Bradley Fighting Vehicles of the animal kingdom.

[wayzim]

He wrote a trilogy. :cool:

I read them all when I was about 13 or 14, absolutely loved the series.

Didn't remember this as a series, but I absolutely thought Rats to be pretty bad. Or maybe it was the scene with a couple gays going at it before being killed.
This was also the first and only book of mine that Dad had ever chucked in the trash after reading it. He apologized later.
I like James Herbert in general, The Fog and The Dark are first rate, but Rats? Not so much.
There was at least one attempt to film it, Deadly Eyes(82) with Sam Groom, a very loose adaption that had dachshund hounds in rat costumes( I kid you not )

Wayne Z

[bassman]

http://www.anycostume.co.uk/images/6101-Rat.jpg

ixrQcGQ6o-w?fs=1&hl=en_US

[Chic Freak]

The rodents the ratzilla is supposed to be descended from look more like beavers, they don't have that pointy nose that rats have. I'd quite like one of the coypu rats as pets, they look cute ^^

Sewer rats are pretty vile though, and surprisingly big and heavy. We had an infestation at one of my student houses when I was at uni and one ran over my foot while I was cooking dinner in the kitchen :hurl: I was all up for setting humane traps for them then driving into the countryside to release them up until that point. Then I was like, "rat catcher time!"

Field rats are nice, though. We had one in my parents' garden that used to come and eat the seed that fell off the bird table and we called him Roland. After a while we had Roland, Mrs Roland and then several baby Rolands coming to snack in our garden everyday :) (They never came in the house.)

[Tricky]

Wild rats are pretty disgusting creatures though, they leak urine constantly & spread some pretty nasty diseases like Weils disease, not to mention the good ol' Bubonic plague back in the 1600's! Sometimes at night round where I live you see literally hundreds of them dashing across the country lanes, its like a sea of them! We have several cats on the farm that do a good job of keeping numbers down though, I just wish they wouldnt rip the bloody things apart on the bonnet of my car :barf:

[BillyRay]

In the interest of a balanced debate, I give you:

tFdSZBdpINw

Awwwwwwwww...a rat!

[AcesandEights]

In the interest of a balanced debate, I give you:

Awwwwwwwww...a rat!

That's adorable, I have to admit.

[dracenstein]

My cat ate a rat outside my back door a couple weeks back, peeling back the skin to crunch through the skull to eat the brain.

The sound was horrible to listen to...

At least the rat was dead at the time.

We often find headless rats and sometimes just the rats' heads in the backyard.

James Herbert rats trilogy was Rats, Lair and Domain, I liked all of them. He also wrote a graphic novel with the rats in called The City, which I haven't been able to get.