Another Giant Rat, this time from the Solomans

[BillTre]

I just read about a recently described species of rat in an article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/science/giant-rat-coconuts-solomon-islands.html?emc=edit_th_20170930&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=38810697
This, of course, reminded me of the famous line from a Sherlock Holmes story.
Holmes is one of my favorite literary characters and I consider Mr. Spock to be the second coming of Sherlock.

The original giant rat quote is:
"Matilda Briggs was not the name of a young woman, Watson, ... It was a ship which is associated with the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared."

After looking this up in wikipedia, I discovered there have (of course) are actually many Giant Rats in nature as well as in literature after Conan Doyle's story (see wikipedia article), some of which were not that unreasonable WRT the original quote (rats involved in disease transmission on a ship which becomes depopulated).

 

[jim mcnamara]

I reread all the Sherlock Homes stories about every ten years or so.

Giant vertebrates (and dwarf species, too) are common on isolated islands, first explained well by Foster's Rule and generalized by Theory of Island Biogeography. (R MacArthur and E O Wilson)

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_gigantism

 

[BillTre]

I was about to say that big things will also tend to get smaller, but then I saw it in your link!

I was thinking mini-elephants and relatives (on many islands islands) and mini-people (the hobbits on Flores).

 

[256bits]

Can't resist