Vangunu Giant Rat
Known from one specimen and centuries of indigenous knowledge. Scientists just caught up
No confirmed photograph exists
Location
Vangunu Island, Solomon Islands
Overview
The Vangunu giant rat, known locally as 'vika', was formally described as a new species only in 2017 — but the Managalasi people of Vangunu Island had known about it for generations. It's a large rat, roughly four times the size of a common rat, that lives in the forest canopy and can gnaw through unripe coconuts with its powerful teeth. The sole scientific specimen was caught in 2015 by Pelton Kesna, a local research assistant, after a logging concession drove the animal out of its usual forest. It has not been formally documented since.
Why haven't we found it?
Vangunu's lowland forest is being cleared by one of the Pacific's most active logging operations. The vika lives in mature forest canopy — trees that take centuries to grow and are being felled in hours. The 2015 specimen may have been flushed out precisely because its habitat was being destroyed. Surveys of remaining forest patches have found evidence (gnawed coconuts, reports from villagers) but no live animal.
Reasons to keep looking
- 1
Managalasi communities on Vangunu can reliably identify vika gnaw marks on coconuts, and reported sightings as recently as 2020 in forest patches west of the logging concession.
- 2
The neighbouring island of New Georgia, with similar forest, has never been systematically surveyed for giant rats — a potential source population or refuge.
- 3
Mammalogist Tyrone Lavery, who described the species, continues to work with local communities on monitoring. The local name 'vika' persisting in oral tradition over generations suggests the animal was never so rare it was unknown.
Things worth knowing
- 1
The vika is in the genus Uromys, which includes the Sulawesi giant rat and other Pacific island rodents — all large, arboreal, and poorly studied.
- 2
Its coconut-opening behaviour is ecologically significant: it creates entry points into coconuts that other animals, including birds and insects, then exploit.
- 3
The 2017 description was co-authored with community members from Vangunu, credited as co-discoverers — an acknowledgement that the species had never been 'unknown' to the people who lived alongside it.
- 4
Logging on Vangunu removed an estimated 30% of mature lowland forest between 2010 and 2020, with concessions continuing to operate.
- 5
No captive individuals exist. There is no breeding program. The species' entire future depends on whether enough forest on one small island survives.