The Flores giant rat (''Papagomys armandvillei'') is a rodent of the family
Muridae that occurs on the island of
Flores in
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
.
It has been recorded in Rutong Protection Forest. The species is found in primary, secondary and disturbed forest over a wide range of elevations.
Head and body length is and tail length is . These dimensions are about twice as large as those of a typical
brown rat
The brown rat (''Rattus norvegicus''), also known as the common rat, street rat, sewer rat, wharf rat, Hanover rat, Norway rat, Norwegian rat and Parisian rat, is a widespread species of common rat. One of the largest muroids, it is a brown o ...
(''Rattus norvegicus''), which suggests about eight times the body mass.
''Papagomys armandvillei'' is the only extant species in the
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...
''
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:Musser and Carleton, 2005; Zijlstra et al., 2008; Aplin and Helgen, 2010 ...
''. The
specific epithet, armandvillei, honours the Dutch Jesuit missionary Cornelis J. F. le Cocq d'Armandville (1846-1896) who was stationed in the Dutch East Indies, and later in New Guinea.
Guy Musser
Guy Graham Musser (August 10, 1936 – October 2019) was an American zoologist. His main research was in the field of the rodent subfamily Murinae, in which he has described many new species.
Musser was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. He attended ...
describes the Flores giant rat as having small, round ears, a chunky body, and a small tail, and as appearing to be adapted for life on the ground with refuge in burrows. It has dense dark hair (pelage). Analysis of the teeth suggests a diet of leaves, buds, fruit, and certain kinds of insects as inferred by large
hypsodont
Hypsodont is a pattern of dentition with high-crowned teeth and enamel extending past the gum line, providing extra material for wear and tear. Some examples of animals with hypsodont dentition are cows and horses; all animals that feed on gritt ...
teeth.
Conservation
''P. armandvillei'' is listed as
Near Threatened
A near-threatened species is a species which has been categorized as "Near Threatened" (NT) by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as that may be vulnerable to endangerment in the near future, but it does not currently qualify f ...
by the
IUCN Red List
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...
. Threats include subsistence hunting and predation by dogs and cats.
A related species,
''P. theodorverhoeveni'', is known from
subfossil remains from 3,000 – 4,000 years ago. This species is presumed to be
extinct, but may still exist on the island.
See also
*
Island gigantism
Island gigantism, or insular gigantism, is a biological phenomenon in which the size of an animal species isolated on an island increases dramatically in comparison to its mainland relatives. Island gigantism is one aspect of the more general Fos ...
References
External links
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1761067
Papagomys
Rodents of Indonesia
Rodents of Flores
Mammals described in 1892