Somewhere in the minefield-dotted countryside of northern Cambodia, a rat the size of a small cat was doing work that would take a human team days to finish - in half an hour.

Meet Ronin

Ronin is an African giant pouched rat, born in Tanzania in August 2019 and deployed to Preah Vihear province, Cambodia in August 2021. He works for APOPO, a Belgian non-profit that has spent more than 25 years training rats to detect landmines. African giant pouched rats weigh up to about 1.5 kilograms - roughly the size of a small cat - which means they are too light to trigger the pressure-sensitive mines they find. That one biological fact makes them uniquely suited for a job that is deadly for humans.

A Record No One Wanted to Need

Between August 2021 and February 2025, Ronin located 109 landmines and 15 additional pieces of unexploded ordnance in Preah Vihear province - a Guinness World Record for a mine-detecting rat. The record was announced on April 4, 2025, which is both International Day for Mine Awareness and World Rat Day. He surpassed the previous record set by Magawa, another APOPO rat, who found 71 landmines and 38 pieces of unexploded ordnance over his nearly five-year career before dying in 2022 at the age of eight.

Cambodia is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world. Decades of conflict - including the Vietnam War era and the Khmer Rouge period - left behind millions of unexploded devices. Thousands of Cambodians have been killed or maimed by landmines since the 1970s. Clearing the land is slow, dangerous work - or it was, before the rats.

Faster Than Any Human

Ronin works in a systematic grid pattern, scratching at the ground when he detects explosive chemicals. He does not dig - a human handler marks the spot and disposes of the mine safely. The efficiency gap is extraordinary: a rat can screen a tennis-court-sized area in roughly 30 minutes, work that would take a human deminer with a metal detector up to four days. Unlike metal detectors, the rats are not distracted by scrap metal - they focus only on the chemical scent of explosives, cutting the number of false alarms dramatically.

Still Going

As of early 2025, Ronin is still working. APOPO expects him to remain active for at least two more years. Every landmine he finds is a patch of Cambodian farmland that can safely go back to the people who need it.

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