An enormous 1kg rat has been discovered. If that doesn’t worry you – it lives in trees

People living on the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean long had spoken of a big, tree-dwelling rat called vika that inhabited the rainforest, but the remarkable rodent managed to elude scientists – until now.

After searching for it for years with cameras mounted in trees and traps, scientists said they finally caught up with the rat on Vangunu Island, part of the Solomon Islands, spotting one as it emerged from a tree felled by loggers.

It instantly joined the list of the biggest rats in the world, weighing about 1kg – four times an ordinary rat – and measuring about 50cm long.

“Vika lives in a very thick, complex forest, and it is up in the canopy so it is difficult to find. It is also a rare species. It is likely there are not many of these rats left,” mammalogist Tyrone Lavery of the Field Museum in Chicago, who led the research, said on Thursday.

The orange-brown rat dines on nuts and fruit, has short ears, a smooth tail with very fine scales and wide feet that allow it to move through the forest canopy.

The rat is reputed to chew holes in coconuts to eat the inside. “I haven’t found proof of this yet, but I have found that they can eat a very thick-shelled nut called a ngali nut,” Lavery said.