Smelling a Rat

As a young biologist, I began my career studying a variety of pest animals, most of which had, wittingly or unwittingly, been introduced into Australia. I began with foxes and wild dogs, later moving down the scale (in size, but not in significance) to rabbits and plague mice. In the course of my investigations, I had cause to work with scientists from the various states as well as from the CSIRO. As you might imagine, ours was a rather small and close-knit circle. We got to know each other fairly well. There were specialised “Pest Control Conferences” held every three years, as well as an Australian Wildlife Management Society, which held annual conferences. Joint projects were not uncommon and, in the case of plague mouse research, the Australian Wheat Board funded co-ordinated studies in the drier grain-growing areas of all those states which had a significant mouse problem in plague years.

And so it was that I became involved in a joint study on the population biology of mice. We had a site in the Victorian Mallee, centred on a little town called Walpeup. At national and international conferences we were invariably asked, “Where the hell is Walpeup?” To this we had an unvarying reply: “Halfway between Galah and Torrita.” This research was part of a large project, involving the CSIRO and three of the grain-growing states. We were, all of us, young, fairly enthusiastic, and as you might expect not averse to a bit of mild ribbing amongst ourselves. Occasionally, there might be a mild practical joke and I have to confess to setting up a few myself. It was only a matter of time before my rather poor attempts provoked a retaliation, the substance of which I will now relate.

There arrived in my office one morning a small brown paper parcel, tied with thick, hairy string of a sort rarely seen nowadays except in the bush. It was addressed in a neat hand and bore a postmark from the Patchewollock Post Office. On removing the wrapping I found, on top of the box, a note written in the same neat hand. The box itself, of oil-impregnated cardboard, was of a size and shape which might suggest that it originally contained shearing combs or cutters. Inside, lying on crumpled toilet paper, were a number of pale ovoid pellets, each about the size of a sparrow’s egg. They were of a fibrous consistency and very tough. With difficulty, I managed to tease out a few strands and look at them under a microscope. They resembled nothing I had seen before, despite years of peering down a microscope at all sorts of things from fox faeces to tapeworms and animal hairs. To this day, I have no idea what the hell they were.

And now to the letter, written by the lady of the house:

Dear Mr Coman,

We have heard that you are doing research on giant rats in the Mallee and I thought I would write to you as we have recently had an invasion of giant rats in our house. Although we got rid of them with Ratsak, they made an awful mess in my linen cupboard where they made their nest. We did not find any bodies, but enclosed are some of the droppings left on my sheets. I thought these might be useful in your study.

Yours sincerely

(Mrs) P. Long

Of course, I immediately suspected a practical joke and like the Tar Baby in Uncle Remus, I decided the best course was “don’t say nuthin”. The incident was quickly forgotten and we pressed on with the more mundane matters of gathering and analysing our data.

About a month later, I received a second small parcel, also with a note. This was another correspondent from Baring (near Patchewollock). The parcel contained a large chisel-shaped tooth, large enough, I should have thought, to come from a beaver. The correspondent (male this time, writing in a distinctly agricultural style) informed me that he had shot a giant rat some time ago “in the bush near home” and later had extracted two teeth from the skeletal remains as proof of the size of the beast. Some measurements of the carcase followed (in feet and inches) plus a description of the tail—hairless and “sort of flattened at the end”. Again, I determined not to give these hoaxers the satisfaction of a reply. In any case, I knew that any letter of reply would be returned with a polite note from the Patchewollock Post Office—“not known at this address”.

There followed, a month or so later, yet another handwritten letter from one “Barry Richards”, RMB Patchewollock. There was a certain urgency in the message. Barry needed my advice on ridding his property of “bloody big mice”. “These,” he said, “are causing a fair bit of trouble with the Missus in the house.” There were also hordes of them in his woolshed.

By this time, I had decided to open a new file, tabbed “giant rats”. I have the contents in front of me as I write this account.

After a somewhat longer gap—perhaps a couple of months—yet another parcel arrived from the bush. This was much larger, a shoebox, perhaps. Again the rudely-formed handwriting, but this time the parcel was posted from Manangatang, another Mallee town, not far away. Inside was the preserved carcase of a truly enormous rat, about the size of a ring-tailed possum. A short note accompanied the specimen (I have lost it) along these lines: “At last the Missus and I managed to trap one of these buggers in a rabbit trap set in the kitchen cupboard. Can you tell us what poison to use?”

By this time, my research colleague was visibly excited. “It has to be a new species,” he said. “There’s no rat that big recorded for the Mallee.” He had a point. All of our native rats in Victoria are smallish creatures, no bigger than a European brown or black rat (both of which we also have). But this specimen was at least double the size. Even our water rat did not measure up to this beast and, in any case, water rats would find it rather hard going up Patchewollock way. There is a story of a Patchewollock man who was struck one day on the forehead by a drop of rain. It took two buckets of dust to revive him.

But then I smelt a faint whiff of Bouins solution. This is a specialised preservative used by biologists and pathologists for histological examinations, and I very much doubt that a Mallee cocky would have such stuff in his shed. Further south, he might have formalin, but this was not footrot country (formalin being the universal treatment for footrot in those days).

It was time to consult the books. Taking down a copy of Ellis Troughton’s Furred Animals of Australia, I leafed through, looking for possible candidates.* After some searching, I found a match. This was one of the giant rats of Cape York, probably Uromys caudimaculatus or Melomys capensis (taxonomists continue to quarrel over species names). A note on Uromys from the Australian Museum’s Complete Book of Australian Mammals tells me that this rat is a nuisance species: “With its formidable incisors it is able to open cans of food and some who have suffered from the depredations of this rodent swear that it is able to read labels!” Clearly, this specimen was a long way from home. I had foiled their little plot, whoever “they” were. And, indeed, this was a bit of a problem. None of my research colleagues worked in the far north, so this had to be a specimen collected for a museum or other study collection. At CSIRO, the famous John Calaby, perhaps Australia’s greatest mammal expert, would have this specimen in his lab. But I had only met John once or twice and he had no reason to pull a stunt like this. Perhaps someone had persuaded him to give up a specimen? Maybe a swap was arranged? Who knows?

There, as I thought, the matter finished. But I had underestimated the tenacity and evil genius of these perpetrators (for I had decided that this was probably a co-operative effort, involving at least two people). About a week after I received the giant rat, an airmail letter arrived on my desk. This was no missive from a Mallee cocky, but a smart, typewritten address on an envelope with the letterhead “Muséum National D’Histoire Naturelle”. Inside, the paper, bearing the same letterhead, was thin, but expensive looking. As I hold it up to the light now, the watermark OCF Savoyeux is clearly visible. The correspondent, claiming to be one Monsieur Petter, got straight down to business:

Cher Monsieur Coman,

J’ai appris que vous faites des recherches en ce moment sur les rats geants de la region nord-ouest de Victoria, et que vous avez trouvez une nouvelle espéce. Comme vous probablement savez, je suis spécialiste des rongeurs africains et je m’occupe en ce moment avec les rats géants de l’Afrique et de l’Amerique du Sud …

and so on.

Having identified his own interest in the giant rats of Africa and South America, he went on to suggest the possibility of some joint studies. To further identify his own interests, he had gone to the trouble of including a reprint of his recent paper, “Elements d’une Revision des Acomys Africains, un Sous-Genre Nouveau, Peracomys Petter et Roche”, 1981. I have this in front of me now and it’s all perfectly genuine. Acomys and Peracomys are, indeed, genera or sub-genera of rodents. Mr Petter did, indeed, deliver this paper at the International Colloquium on the Ecology and Taxonomy of African Small Mammals, held in Antwerp (the Antwerp in Belgium, that is, not the Antwerp in the Wimmera halfway between Tarranyurk and Arkona) in 1981.

What could be done? I sat down and composed a short paper titled “Trade and Communication in Pre-European Australia”. The gist of this paper was to suggest that the appearance of giant Top End rats in Victoria’s Mallee was explicable only in terms of relocation via human hands. My thesis was that the tail of Uromys was of an ideal size and length for use as a sort of pipe-cleaner in didgeridoos. Moreover, the naked end of the tail provided a useful hand grip. You must imagine that, over time, the instruments would accumulate a certain amount of dried spittle, deleteriously affecting the tuning. It is easy to imagine a north-south trading arrangement for such a valuable asset.

The paper went on at some length, quoting evidence from early European explorers, the finding of Top End boomerangs carved from Mallee Black Box, and so on. Copies were sent to the three main suspects. No acknowledgments were received.

All of this happened over thirty years ago. Over that period I have repeatedly interrogated all of the possible suspects in this business. In every case and on every occasion, I have been greeted with a blank look and grave shaking of the head. I will go to my grave without discovering the identity of the perpetrators.

So ended the saga of the giant rat. It brings to mind a curious little aside in Conan Doyle’s “Adventure of the Sussex Vampire”, when Sherlock Holmes says to Watson:

Matilda Briggs was not the name of a young woman, Watson … It was a ship which is associated with the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared.

* Note on Ellis Troughton: I had the pleasure of meeting “Troughtie” on a couple of occasions. He was a very amiable fellow. The giant rats would have been familiar to him as he spent a lot of time collecting specimens in New Guinea, where such beasts are common.

His favourite story concerns one collection trip towards the end of his life. He suffered from a bad heart and could not walk uphill any great distance. To solve the problem, the natives built a litter and carried him up some of the steeper climbs. On one occasion, he met up with an Australian official “out bush” who inquired about his strange mode of transport. “It’s the old ticker,” said Troughtie, “she’s buggered.” After exchanging pleasantries, they moved on. Soon after, they met a group of natives coming down the trail. This called for a smoko stop and a yarn. In the course of the conversation between the two groups of natives (in pidgin) Troughtie heard the newcomers inquiring as to what was wrong with the white bloke. “Klok belong him bugarup pinish,” one of his bearers replied. Troughtie was very fond of recounting this story.