New species of Manus Island rat named after detainees in 'solidarity' gesture

Team including Tim Flannery dub previously unknown species, which weighs nearly half a kilogram, Rattus detentus - Latin for 'detained'

Manus Island's newest "detainee" may have been on the island hundreds of thousands of years.

Rattus detentus, an ancient, isolated and previously unknown species of the genus Rattus - a rat - has been so named for the Latin "detained", "in reference to the isolation of ... Manus Island and to the recent use of the island to detain people seeking political and/or economic asylum in Australia".