Rat Sets Record for Most Land Mines Sniffed Out By His Species

Some consider rats, not to be confused with mice, as pests. Others deem them lifesavers. One African giant pouched rat in Cambodia is making communities safer by sniffing out dangerous explosives—and he just set a record for his species.

According to Smithsonian, the 5-year-old rat named Ronin found 109 land mines to date in the small community of Sror Aem, Preah Vihear, Cambodia, and 15 more unexploded weapons from August 2021 to February 2025. This feat gained Ronin a spot in Guinness World Records for “most landmines found by a rat” this year (that’s him in action in the YouTube video above).

Ronin is part of APOPO, a Belgian nonprofit that trains African giant pouched rats to detect unactivated land mines left over from wars in different countries. The organization explains that many types of rats could become successful explosive detectors, but African giant pouched rats have a particularly keen sense of smell, making them ideal for the job.

Their sophisticated olfactory systems allow them to sniff low amounts of TNT buried almost eight inches deep and more than three feet away. There are other reasons these big rodents make great detectors: they’re laid-back, easy to train, and cheap to feed and breed. 

Human land mine inspectors are more likely to be injured or killed because their body weight can set off the pressure-activated explosives. APOPO’s largest rats weigh only 3.3 pounds, so they’re light enough to locate a mine without detonating it—and they work faster than humans would. They can search an area for landmines the size of a tennis court in 30 minutes. A human with a metal detector can take up to four days to search a land mass of the same size. And fortunately, none of APOPO’s rats have been hurt while on the job.

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