A doctoral student who researches New York City rats found his biggest-ever catch, weighing almost one and a half pounds.

'I've caught rats all over the city, and I've seen the ones that I didn't catch. I think it's among the biggest that live in New York City,' said Matt Combs of Fordham University.

The city's even meatier rats could weigh up to 800 grams, which amounts to over 1.7 pounds, according to Combs.

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These unfortunate rats, which were not part of Comb's study, were found hung by a Lower East Side resident last summer

Combs and his colleague, Elizabeth Carlen, use trained dogs to catch the huge rats, while smaller ones tend to fall into traps set by the two researchers, Combs told Atlas Obscura.

In his research project, which aims to understand how rats colonize new areas so that the spreading of diseases can be better understood, Combs has observed that large rats often live close to food sources.

'I was staring at the dumpster where the rats eat every day,' says Combs. 'These are the laziest rats.'

Combs and Carlen send collections of stuffed rat bodies to the Peabody Museum at Yale University, for further study.

The one-and-a-half pound catch is unusual, however. Of the hundreds of rats Combs has collected, most weigh under a pound, he said.

One of the largest rats ever reported in New York City was a huge beast dubbed Master Splinter by the Twitter user that first posted a picture of it.

The enormous rat was found in a Footlocker store in the Bronx in 2012, according to Twitter user TheGoodfella.

This gigantic rat was found at a Bronx footlocker and dubbed Master Splinter. The details are murky, but it appears to have been found in 2012

Jose Rivera speared this humongous rat at a housing project in Brooklyn in 2011. It was reported to be up to three feet long

Another classic rodent beast was speared by an employee at Brooklyn's Marcy Houses housing project in 2011.

Jose Rivera, 48 spotted the rat coming out of a hole and stabbed it with a pitchfork, reported the New York Daily News.

The rodent was up to three feet long and appeared to be a Gambian pouched rat, according to the Daily News.

The most common rat in New York City is of the rattus norvegicus species.