Can You Handle The Size Of This Gigantic Rat?

Hi yes hello, important question for you today, Internet: Does anybody know what kind of dog this is?

Oh, wait. It's a rat you say? Oohhhhhh oh okay, yeah, you can kind of see that if you squint. Just another Rodent of Unusual Size, a rat of catlike proportions, a beefy specimen birthed by the sewers and then burped up to hex this alleged Madison Avenue construction project. This is a miniature capybara, or quite possibly a nutria (only absent the telltale orange teeth), and by all accounts an absolute unit.

Although double XL rats can occasionally be found hanging out behind the middle school dumpsters, or speared on the prongs of pitchforks, or trundling around under your feet right this very minute, some people have questioned this photo's authenticity. Some people argue that the only reason this husky fella appears to be about on par with the thigh of the man holding it, in terms of length and circumference, is "confusing perspective." Maybe it's not actually enormous, they say; maybe it only looks that way because this guy is dangling its carcass way out in front of his body, at the safest possible distance, creating an optical illusion.

And yeah, maybe, but his arms would have to be unnaturally long, roughly the equivalent of three arms attached shoulder to fingertip, in order to skew the perspective that significantly. Also! Gothamist intern Xavier Rubira ran a meticulous Photoshop analysis on this pic, to determine whether or not anyone had been messing around with the pixels, and he came away "pretty sure" that we're looking at an unedited photo, so.

Anyway, we all know what fate awaits those who question the existence of ROUS. Keep those doubts to yourselves.