the forest had begun a serious decline. Professor Flenley says this had many reasons including land clearance for crops, erect the huge Easter Island statues. He believes it is also likely that forest regeneration was limited by another early arrival, the Polynesian rat. Support for this theory came after a second trip to the island in 1983, when he was given unidentified fossilised nuts found by French cavers.
the shells were almost identical to those from the largest palm in the world, the Chilean Wine Palm – and bore the tooth marks of a Polynesian rat.