(no subject)

[telophase]

Mozambique has just been declared free of landmines! It was done with the help of specially trained giant rats. Flickr gallery of pictures of the rats and their handlers. (via an AMA on Reddit with two people from one of the organizations involved in clearing the landmines.)

edit: A reply from the AMA asking about what species of rat they are: "Thanks for your question! We train Gambian Pouched Rats which are a different species to the ones that people tend to keep as pets which are normally the Norwegian variety. Our rats are much bigger, nearly twice the size, and are native to the parts of Africa that we work in. They are resistant to disease, easy to train, have an exceptional sense of smell, and are a bit like dogs really. Very friendly, charismatic, curious, affectionate, they are great creatures to work with!"

Comments

[yhlee]

That's so incredibly cool. And yay! \o/

[telophase]

I know!XD

[green_knight]

That was fascinating, thanks. Who'd have thunk.

[telophase]

:)

[batwrangler]

I knew people in the 1990s who managed to obtain "pet" pouched rats but those particular individual rats were essentially feral animals. Those people were all very excited about this program when it launched. I'm glad to see it has been so successful!

[telophase]

:)

[gaudior]

Aww, and yay!

[camwyn]

Oh, these guys are great. They're training the same species of rat to help analyze tuberculosis samples, too- their sense of smell makes them as accurate as a human lab worker on questionable samples, and a lot faster.

[telophase]

Oh, nifty!

[camwyn]

Yeah- a human microscope technician can analyze something like forty samples in a day, whereas a trained rat can do the same number in twenty minutes, and tends to be really good at distinguishing sputum samples that were right on the borderline and inaccurately marked as negative. They've been screening samples in Dar es Salaam since 2007 and found close to seven thousand TB patients who wouldn't have been identified and treated otherwise.