by Chris Bodenner
A classic Dish email:
I thought for sure that someone would have pointed this out by now, but if they have, I haven't seen it. The photo that is generating so many fearful responses about "giant Gambian rats" is a great demonstration of perspective, but it doesn't show a scarily large rat (unless of course, you find rats of any size scary).
The photo in question shows a rat on a pitchfork that is much closer to the camera than the man behind it. You can tell by looking at the width of the pitchfork (which would typically be 10-14 inches), and the perspectival splay of the tines. Once you take that into account, the rat – which initially looks large due to the flattened perspective – shrinks into a more reasonable rat size.
I've gone to the trouble of creating a first-pass analysis of the image to indicate in a general way what the true dimensions of that rat were more likely to be.
I think the reader is exaggerating a bit in the other direction (see here and here for accurate views of the Gambian rat), but that diagram is pretty badass.
Update from a reader:
That perspective trick is something every fisherman knows instinctively. Hold the fish out at arm's length when getting your picture taken. Then, when you're telling fish stories later on, you've got photographic proof!
The Dish 