A restaurant in southern China that found itself at the center of outrage for selling "koala meat" claims it was in fact selling a type of rat that bears a resemblance to the drowsy marsupial.

An Australian tourist visiting a restaurant in Guangzhou's Panyu district told a radio station 3AW that diners were able to select a live koala from a cage and could choose whether they wanted it "braised" or "stewed."

Distressed by the scene, the traveller snapped a photo of what appeared to be the iconic animal, bent forward and facing downward in a cage, with only a carrot given as food.

But the general manager of the restaurant denied that the animal was a koala, the Xinhua news agency reported.

"The Australian tourist was actually the victim of a false alarm, as the restaurant never sells koala," the manager said.

Another manager at the restaurant clarified that the animal was a bamboo rat.

The Chinese bamboo rat is found in southern parts of the country and is commonly sold in food markets.

Authorities are investigating how a live rat was allegedly able to find its way into a loaf of bread at a Townsville supermarket (that’s in Northern Queensland, Australia) before being sold to an unsuspecting customer.

The gruesome find was made by a shopper who bought a loaf of Helga's Bread from Coles at Centro in Aitkenvale on Sunday.

The woman, who asked to remain anonymous, said she was unloading her shopping into a car with a friend when she noticed the slices had holes in them.
 

Rat poop may be the immediate health risk, but gnawing on wires is even more dangerous.

We found this out the expensive way a couple of times in Kansas, when rats, seeking warmth, entered the car’s engine and decided to go for a chomp.

It’s happened twice.

Bloomberg reports that rodent droppings “too numerous to count” were found by U.S. health inspectors near a Delta Air Lines Inc. (DAL) jet’s galley where food and drink are stored.

The excrement and mammalian urine turned up in inspections at a Delta hangar in Atlanta, the Food and Drug Administration said in an April 13 letter to the airline.

Delta’s response to the agency didn’t include steps to prevent a recurrence, which is “likely” unless such measures are taken, the FDA said.

The FDA said the inspections took place from Jan. 26 through Feb. 2. Rodent excrement was discovered above the right and left forward galleys and mammalian urine was detected in six areas on ceiling panels over a galley, according to the FDA.

Chad Artimovich, president of Atlanta Wildlife Solutions LLC, a pest-control company, said,

“Once it gets in there and gets established, there’s no reason to leave. The real concern is if a rat started chewing on wires. Almost every house I go into where there are rats, they’ve chewed on wood and wiring and ornaments. Their teeth are harder than iron and they have to keep them gnawed down.”
 

Running a restaurant is hard enough without dealing with rats and wackos.

The Post-Crescent reports that a woman who attempted to extort money from an upscale restaurant by putting a rat in her lunch entered no-contest pleas Tuesday to two criminal charges.

Judge Dee Dyer found Debbie R. Miller, 43, guilty after she entered the no-contest pleas to a felony extortion charge and a misdemeanor for obstructing police. She will be sentenced March 8 in Outagamie County Court.

Miller planted a rat in her lunch at The Seasons on April 17, 2008, and then demanded $500,000 from the owners. She threatened to alert the media if the money wasn’t paid.

Bob Doller, who owns The Seasons in Grand Chute with his wife, Jessica, said,

“This has been a long, drawn out battle and it has affected my business. We would hope that if anyone had any doubts that it was a true claim, they would know now that it was extortion. In April, it will be two years since this happened. If you compare 2007 to 2008 (the year of the incident), the loss was tens of thousands of dollars.”

The Dollers kept the rat after the extortion attempt. Insurance investigators sent it for testing and determined that it not only wasn’t a wild rat, but rather a domestic, white rat that had been cooked in a microwave. The restaurant doesn’t use microwaves.