Giant guinea pig-sized rats that climb trees and chomp coconuts were photographed for the first time by researchers

• The Vangunu giant rat is a species that exists only on one of the Solomon Islands.
• Local residents had deep knowledge of the rat, which researchers had never seen alive.
• With the help of the Indigenous community, researchers captured the first-ever images of the rat.

Between 2010 and 2015, Tyrone Lavery and his colleagues searched tree hollows and set up camera traps and aluminum boxes. They were trying to capture evidence of the Vangunu giant rat, Uromys vika.