Giant Rat Found in Mexico City Is Not a Real Rodent

The giant rat that was found in a Mexico City drain is a Halloween prop. The prop rat was discovered on September 16 following a day of rain in the city.

According to Border Report, the giant rat is a Halloween prop that washed away from a warehouse following heavy rains a few years ago. A woman who claimed to own the rat, named by Border Report as Evelin Lopez, said that she attempted to look for the prop in the drainage system. Those attempts failed because nobody came to help, Lopez said. She did not say if she would be keeping the prop rat now that it has been rediscovered. The rat was found close to the Magdalena River in the Mexican capital, reported El Tiempo.

The Rain That Led to the Discovery of the Rat Was the Worst Suffered by Mexico City in 20 Years

Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum told the media on September 17 that the previous day’s rain was the worst the city had suffered through in 20 years. Sheinbaum said that around 4 inches of rain fell in the city and winds gusted at over 36 miles per hour.

El Universal reported that the recovery of the prop rat was covered on the Mexican television show En Punto. El Universal mentioned that the rat measured around 4 1/2 feet tall.

In Addition to the Rat, Rescue Crews Found Furniture & Toilet Bowls That Amounted to 20 Tons of Garbage

Televisa reported that in addition to the giant rat, workers also recovered furniture and toilet bowls from the drain. According to La Verdad, in total, 20 tons of garbage was found inside of the drain. In May 2020, La Verdad reported that due to the coronavirus quarantine and accumulation of garbage, a “plague” of rats had descended on Mexico City.

The Average Weight of a Rat in New York City Is Half a Pound

National Geographic reported in 2008 that the largest rodent known to man was the Josephoartigasia monesi. The “megarodent” was discovered fossilized in Uruguay and weighed over 2,000 pounds. The species lived between two and four million years ago and was the size of a bull, National Geographic reported.

More recently, a doctoral student from Fordham University, Matthew Combs, told The Huffington Post that the largest rat recovered in New York City weighed 1 1/2 pounds. Combs said he did not believe there were any rats larger than about 2 pounds in New York City. Studies show that the average weight of a rat is half a pound, according to Atlas Obscura. Combs told the Huffington Post, “Bigger rats does not necessarily mean more dangerous.”

According to a 2016 BBC report, the largest rat living today is a Sumatran bamboo rat, which can weigh up to 8.8 pounds, while the Gambian pouched rat “can measure nearly 3 feet.” Gambian pouched rats are kept as pets, and in 2003, they were linked to a monkeypox outbreak in the United States. In 2019, a large rat in Germany went viral after a video showed it getting stuck while trying to escape from a manhole cover.

READ NEXT: Teenage Porn Star Controversy Rocks California High School