Specialty rodents, or how rats are taught to search for mines

Animals have been used for military purposes for thousands of years and are still doing so despite the development of new technologies, the mechanization and robotization of the armed forces. For example, in Tanzania, rats are used for sapper operations.

Since the civil wars on the territory of Africa, hundreds of thousands of mines have remained in active condition, from which animals and people suffer from time to time. To eliminate them, it was decided to create a special detachment of sappers-rat-breeders, where the main role in the search for explosive devices was assigned to rodents of the genus African hamster rat.

These creatures are lightweight and have developed intelligence, which means they are great for this kind of work. In addition, they are endowed with keen hearing and excellent sense of smell.

They begin to train animals as soon as they are five weeks old. The course lasts from 8 months to a year, after which the little recruits are ready to go on the real task.

So that you can evaluate the effectiveness of such detachments, let’s say that a sapper with a metal detector needs about 3 days to clear a hectare of land from a min of land, while a team of trained rats will cope with the task in literally half an hour.