Cnn
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Rats do not always have the best reputation, but one named Ronin with a great feeling of smell works to change this.
Ronin and his sniff rats pack make a name for rodents everywhere by saving innocent civilians from hidden explosives.
The African giant rat recently set a new world record for most land mines detected by a rat. Between August 2021 and February 2025, Ronin discovered 109 terrestrial mines and 15 other unploded ammunition parts in a region close to Siem Reap in Cambodia, according to Guinness World Records.
“Ronin’s achievements bear witness to the incredible potential of rats,” said its main phanny manager to Guinness’s publication.
Land mines are a major problem in the old conflict zones. The explosive weapons, hidden in the ground, are designed to hurt or kill anyone who passes them. In Cambodia alone, they have caused more than 65,000 deaths and injuries since the fall of the brutal regime of Khmers Rouge in 1979, according to the Terrestrial Mine and Cluster ammunition instructor.
Their use is controversial because of their blind nature and the threat they constitute for decades after the end of a conflict, killing and mutilating and hampering the development of land in the war ravaged by war.
They are also notoriously difficult and dangerous to detect. This is where rats come in; Their high intelligence, their speed and their acute smell make them able to identify the explosives. They are also too light to trigger terrestrial mines.
It is a crucial work. It is estimated that 110 million terrestrial mines are still buried in more than 60 countries around the world, said non -profit apopo for detection of terrestrial mines. In 2023, land mines made 5,757 victims worldwide – 37% of which involved children, according to the Terlmine Monitor 2024.
Ronin is one of the more than 100 rats formed by Apopo to detect the smell of explosive chemicals and point to land mines to their managers.
The rats are very versatile and have also been trained to detect tuberculosis in a medical environment, helping to prevent the spread of infectious diseases.
The non -profit Belgian non -profit rats team can search an area the size of a tennis court in 30 minutes – something that could take a sequester with a metal detector up to four days.
Ronin, who is 5 years old and was born in Tanzania, is much larger than your average company. It measures more than 2 feet long – about the length of a cat – and weighs 2.6 pounds, according to Apopo.
The province of Vihear of Cambodia, where Ronin was deployed to one of the highest densities of terrestrial mines in the world after decades of conflict in the 20th century, including heavy bombardments by the United States during the Vietnam War.
The United States has lost 2.7 million tonnes of ammunition – including bombs in bunches and submunitions – in a four -year carpet bombing campaign in Cambodia. Up to a quarter of cluster bombs have not exploded, which means that they remained active and dangerous but out of sight, according to a 2019 US Congressional Research Service report.
Despite years of demining efforts, there are still around 4 to 6 million land mines not exploded in Cambodia, according to Apopo.
Ronin claims Magawa’s world record, another rat formed by Apopo who identified 71 terrestrial mines and 38 pieces of unploded ammunition during his five years of service. Magawa passed peacefully in January 2022.