Rare giant rat is photographed alive for the first time
For years, the indigenous people of Vangunu, one of the Solomon Islands, had maintained that a critically endangered giant rat that could chew through coconuts still lived among the trees of the forest, although its numbers had dwindled as loggers destroyed its habitat.
No one had been documented alive before. But it turned out that the people of Zaira village were right.
Researchers from the University of Melbourne and Solomon Islands National University, with help from the local community, recently captured images of the Vangunu giant rat, or Uromys vika. It is one of the rarest rodents in the world and Vangunu is the only island it is known to inhabit.
The rat, called Vika by Vangunu residents, is at least twice the size of a regular rat, about 45 centimeters, half of which represents the tail, researchers said. The observations were published in the scientific journal Ecology and evolution on November 20.
Collaboration with the community of Zaira was key to finding the rat, said Kevin Sese of the Solomon Islands National University, from Guadalcanal Island, southwest of Vangunu Island.
“The knowledge lies with the people. They are the custodians of local knowledge,” said Mr Sese, a senior author of the paper. “Without them we wouldn’t have known where to place the cameras.”
The researchers changed the type of bait they used from peanut butter, which would rot after sitting outside for long periods of time, to sesame oil. Just a few days after the bait was set, the rats started emerging.
Over six months, the paper’s authors took 95 images of four different rats.
“I was really shocked and amazed because, like I said, I’ve tried this a number of times before and only got black rats,” says Dr. Tyrone Lavery from the University of Melbourne School of Biosciences, the book’s lead author. paper.
This isn’t the first time Dr. Lavery the rat tries to photograph.
He and another researcher conducted intensive research from 2010 to 2015 using camera traps, aluminum box traps, spot lighting and actively searching for hollow trees, but were unable to find Vika.
In 2015, Dr. Lavery the first DNA sample from a Vika rat that had died after loggers cut down a tree it was living in. He compared the DNA and skull with other rodents from Australia, New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. show that it was a new species.
Years later, however, that was not enough to prove that the species was still alive.
Zaira has long been fighting for his piece of forest to be recognized as a protected area under the Solomon Islands Protected Areas Act 2010, said Dr. Lavery. Now that footage shows the Vika are still around, he hopes this will strengthen the village’s cause.
The rat’s survival is important for the local ecosystem, where it is part of the food chain, he said. And it has cultural significance for the people of Zaira, whose oral history speaks of the rat, providing ideas about where it might be in the forest and what kind of nuts it ate.
But logging has long been a big part of the Solomon Islands’ economy, according to the world’s twelfth largest exporter of raw timber. The Observatory of Economic Complexitya data visualization tool for international trade data.
The logging has harmed the the environment of the islandssay scientists.
“I think the Zaira people are also aware of the consequences of logging on the other parts of the island,” Mr Sese said. “And I think that’s one of the things that pushed them to preserve the forest.”