Largest species of rat

The world’s largest species of rat is presently the slender-tailed cloud rat Phloeomys cumingi of Luzon, an island in the Philippines. This tree-climbing, densely furred species inhabits Luzon’s cloud forests and measures almost 1 m (3 ft 3 in) long. However, in 2007, during what was only the second visit ever by a scientific team to the remote, scarcely known Foja Mountains in Irian Jaya (Indonesian New Guinea), a huge, previously unknown species of furry rat was observed and captured alive there. With a head-and-body length of 0.7 m (27.5 in) plus its tail, this newly discovered species is the size of a cat and is already being referred to as the biggest rat known, so when further specimens are recorded it may well dethrone the slender-tailed cloud rat. Consultant Karl Shuker adds in 2013: "In 2007 and again in 2008 expeditions to the remote Foja Mountains of New Guinea discovered a giant species of woolly rat (genus Mallomys) that weighed 1.4 kg, and may be new to science, but it has not been formally described and named as a new species so far. Many media reports claimed that this Foja woolly rat could be the world's largest species of rat because of its great length. However, because it has yet to be described, there is presently no confirmation that it really is larger than the current record-holder, which is the slender-tailed cloud rat Phloeomys cumingi, so the latter species remains world's biggest rat for now."