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Rats that are the [size / sizes] of sheep might be a good horror movie story. However, [scientists / scientist] from the University of Leicester in England say that in the future, there could [really / reality] be giant rats on the Earth. They could be as big as sheep and [weigh / weight] up to 80kg. Rats are [sprawling / spreading] all over the Earth. They are now the [strongest / strangest] animals on many small islands. One of the [reason / reasons] for this is that they travel on ships and [locate / relocate] to areas that never had rats before. Another reason is that many larger animals are becoming [exact / extinct] , so there are fewer animals that might kill rats. Researcher Dr Jan Zalasiewicz said: "Given enough time, rats could probably [growth / grow] to be…the world's largest rodent."

Dr Zalasiewicz said rats are one of the best examples of a [spaces / species] that we have spread around the world, and have [successful / successfully] [adapted / adopted] to many of the new environments. He said: "There will be future [think / thin] rats, future fat rats, slow and heavy rats, fast and [ferocious / ferociously] rats, probably future aquatic rats - the list goes on." After the dinosaurs died [in / out] , many small animals slowly grew bigger and [bigger / biggest] . The same thing could happen with rats if there are no animals left that hunt and kill [it / them] . Dr Zalasiewicz also believes that "super-rats" will start killing other species to make them extinct. This will have a big [compact / impact] on food chains. He did not say what humans would do about giant rats running around [anywhere / everywhere] .