Verhoeven's giant tree rat [SEP] parent taxon
Verhoeven's giant tree rat
Verhoeven's giant tree rat ("Papagomys theodorverhoeveni") is an extinct rat of subfamily Murinae that lived on Flores in Indonesia. It was assessed as being extinct in 1996. However, experts believe that it died out before 1500 AD. The species is known only from several subfossil fragments. It was named after Dutch priest Theodor Verhoeven.
. The Flores giant rat is also endemic to the island, and Verhoeven's giant tree rat was formerly present. These giant rodents are considered examples of island gigantism.
Flores was also the habitat of several extinct dwarf forms of the proboscidean "Stegodon", the most recent ("Stegodon florensis insularis") disappearing approximately 12,000 years ago and the diminutive "Homo floresiensis". It is speculated by scientists that limited resources and an absence of advanced predators made the few megafaunal species that reached the island subject to insular dwarfism