This article is from the WSSF 2009 AFRMA Rat & Mouse Tales news-magazine.

Did You Know?  Gambian Giant Pouched Rats are being used in Mozambique to sniff out land mines buried across the countryside. A single rat can inspect 1,000 square feet in about 30 minutes. Plans are to send the raccoon-size rats to Angola, Congo, Zambia, and other land-mine infested countries.

And in neighboring Tanzania, teams of these rats are used to detect tuberculosis (TB) bacteria in saliva samples from four clinics. These TB sniffing rats have identified 300 cases of early-stage TB. They can check out 40 samples every 10 minutes.

For more on this, go to Apopo International.