Question: Just wondering do they have 6ft killer rats in africa or is my friend talking rubbish??

Anouk Gouvras answered on 15 Jun 2012:

I think I know where this has come from, last year there was something about giant/gambian pouched rats killing babies. To be honest there this was never really confirmed and at most seemed to be a freak event, with numerous other factors involved, such as the negligence of the parents who left the baby alone for a long time etc.

Giant pouched rats are actually quite shy and although omnivorous they don’t really eat meat, they eat plants, insects and some snails. Also they only every reach about 3 feet in length. It is possible that if these rats were very very very hungry, lets say starving, and you lived in a very very very dirty area then maybe they would eat any meat available even if it was attached to a human. But that would be very rare and unusual. Most of the time these rats would run away at the mere sound of a human.
Actually in Tanzania an organisation is using these rats with their heightened sense of smell (the have very poor eyesight but a brilliant sense of smell) to detect old land mines and tuberculosis in areas. Check out their website http://www.apopo.org/cms.php?cmsid=32&lang=en

Like Judith says there are some pretty big rodents out there but just want to point out that the Capybara lives in South America not Africa and it is a herbivore (so no danger of meat-eating here). I saw them on a field-trip in the amazon rainforest once. They are soooooo cute!