An African landmine-sniffing rat in Cambodia has broken a world record after detecting more than 100 landmines and other explosives in the country, announced its non-profit Apopo on Friday.
The giant pouched rat has been named by the Belgian charity as its most successful Mine Detection Rat (MDR) for uncovering 109 landmines and 15 items of unexploded ordnance since 2021, Apopo said in a statement.
Ronin the rat has been recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records which said that the rodent’s “crucial work” is making a real difference to people who have had to live with the “fear that one misstep while going about their day-to-day lives could be their last”.
“And Ronin’s work is far from finished. At just five years old, he may have two years or more of detection work ahead of him, continuing to build on his already record-breaking total,” the statement by Apopo said.
Ronin was deployed to Preah Vihear province in Cambodia in August 2021, Apopo said.
The rodent has broken the previous record held by the African giant pouched rat Magawa who detected 71 landmines and 38 pieces of unexploded ordnance over the course of five years.
The Tanzania-based Apopo non-profit has 104 rodent recruits which it calls HeroRATS.
Its page of Ronin says that the avocado-loving rat is 68cm in length, weighs 1,175gm, and his personality is “hardworking, but friendly and relaxed”.
Scarred by decades of civil war, Cambodia is one of the world’s most heavily landmined countries, with more than 1,000sqkm (621 sq miles) of land still contaminated.
It has among the highest number of amputees per capita, with more than 40,000 people losing limbs to explosives.
Apopo says its HeroRATs can search an area the size of a tennis court in 30 minutes. The same task would take a deminer with a metal detector up to four days depending on how much scrap metal was lying around.
It says that the trained rats can detect the chemical compound within explosives called TNT, and they ignore scrap metal, unlike traditional methods with a metal detector.
