Giant Rat 'Bigger Than A Dog' Near Playground

news.sky.com

A gas engineer has told how he came across a rat bigger than his dog as he worked at a block of flats.

Tony Smith, 46, spotted the dead rodent in a bush near a children's playground while working close to Hackney Downs in London.

He believes it weighs more than 25lb - and is "about 4ft" long including its tail, although this would easily put it on a par with the largest known rat species in the world.

"This is the largest rat I've ever seen in my entire life," he said.

He took a photograph of his friend James Green, an electrician, holding up the supersize rat to the camera.

Mr Smith added: "I've got a cat and a Jack Russell and it was bigger than both of those."

He said bins are often left open near the estate where he has been working so "these little fellas have a pretty good diet"...

They include Hackney Council, which has posted images showing how the eye can be deceived.

One shows a member of staff holding a soft toy close up to the camera and then just in front of his face.

In the first picture the toy looks huge - but in the second, which shows its actual size, it looks quite small.

Referring to the giant rat, the council tweeted: "It's probably not that big. Our pest control team are checking it out though."

Guinness World Records says the world's biggest rat is believed to be the slender-tailed cloud rat found on Luzon, an island in the Philippines, which has a body length of up to 3ft 3in.