Photos of the giant rats leading land mine detection efforts in Cambodia

Rats may send some squealing, but in Cambodia, teams of the not-so-little critters have become indispensable in helping specialists detect land mines that have killed and maimed thousands in the Southeast Asian country. The African giant pouched rats, which can grow up to 45 centimeters (around 18 inches) and weigh up to 1.5 kilograms (more than 3 pounds), are on the front line, making their way nimbly across fields to signal to their handlers when they get a whiff of TNT, used in most land mines and explosive ordnance. “While working with these rats, I have always found mines and they have never skipped a single one,” said Mott Sreymom, a rat handler at APOPO, a humanitarian demining group that trains and deploys rodent detection teams across the world. “I really trust these mine detection rats," Mott told The Associated Press while on her lunch break after working on a land mine field in the province of Siem Reap. After three decades of conflict in the previous century,...

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