The Gran Canaria giant rat (Canariomys tamarani) is an extinct species of rat endemic to the island of Gran Canaria (Canary Islands, Spain).
This rodent is known from Holocene fossil remains found at several places on the island of Gran Canaria, the youngest of which have been dated to shortly before the beginning of the Common Era. This species was previous listed on the 2000 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as extinct, but was removed from the list because it is now considered to have gone extinct before 1500 AD.
The giant rat reached a body length of about 25 cm, similar to the size of the brown rat. It is believed that the arrival of humans and the introduction of feral cats led to its extinction.
Another giant rat of the Canary Islands was the Tenerife giant rat, Canariomys bravoi.
Famous quotes containing the words giant and/or rat:
“Of a truth, Knowledge is power, but it is a power reined by scruple, having a conscience of what must be and what may be; whereas Ignorance is a blind giant who, let him but wax unbound, would make it a sport to seize the pillars that hold up the long- wrought fabric of human good, and turn all the places of joy as dark as a buried Babylon.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Myths and legends die hard in America. We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men’s reality. Weird heroes and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of “the rat race” is not yet final.”
—Hunter S. Thompson (b. 1939)