Landmines Facts

Ronin is an African giant pouched rat, roughly the size of a small cat. Belgian charity APOPO trained him to sniff out landmines in Cambodia. From 2021 to 2025, he found 109 landmines and 15 other unexploded devices there. That broke the Guinness World Record set by his predecessor Magawa. A rat clears a tennis-court area in 30 minutes. A human deminer takes up to four days.

African giant pouched rats can screen 100 TB sputum samples in under 20 minutes. A lab technician takes at least four days to do the same work. APOPO trains these rats, called HeroRATs, to spot TB cases standard tests miss. They also sniff out buried landmines. Too light to set the mines off.

Cambodia carved a giant stone statue of a rat. It honors Magawa, who spent five years sniffing out landmines there. He became the first rat ever given the PDSA Gold Medal. That medal is the animal world's version of the George Cross. Magawa found 71 landmines and 38 unexploded bombs before he retired in 2021. He cleared ground equal to roughly 20 football fields.