The Timor giant rat (''Coryphomys musseri'') is an extinct species of giant rat described in 2010. It is known only from

sub-fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved i ...

s that were found on

Timor Island Timor (, , ) is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, in the north of the Timor Sea. The island is Indonesia–Timor-Leste border, divided between the sovereign states of Timor-Leste in the eastern part and Indonesia in the ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

. It is related to the

murine The Old World rats and mice, part of the subfamily Murinae in the family Muridae, comprise at least 519 species. Members of this subfamily are called murines. In terms of species richness, this subfamily is larger than all mammal families excep ...

s of

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...

and Romania. Archaeological research on East Timor has revealed the bones of rats weighing up to 6 kilograms (13.2 pounds) when adult. In 2015, the discovery of fossils of "seven new species of giant rat", including the "largest rat ever" on the island of East Timor was announced. The biggest of these rats was described as weighing "five kilos (11 pounds), the size of a small dog," and was referred to as the "Giant Rat" in news stories."Giant Rat Species in East Timor Was Largest Ever"
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Extinction

They seem to have died out between 1000 and 2000 years ago (around 1-1000 AD), perhaps due to large-scale forest clearance for farming.Turvey, Samuel T. (editor). (2009). Holocene Extinctions. Oxford University Press.

Human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') or modern humans are the most common and widespread species of primate, and the last surviving species of the genus ''Homo''. They are Hominidae, great apes characterized by their Prehistory of nakedness and clothing ...

s, who first settled in Timor around 46,000 years ago, would have also probably eaten these rats as a delicacy, which may have been a factor towards their extinction. ''C. musseri'' was probably endangered by 1 AD and it was extinct by 1000 AD.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15195839 Coryphomys Extinct mammals of Asia