African Pouched Rats Sniff Out Unexploded Landmines
The landmine-sniffing rats are trained Pavlovian-style. When a rat stops to sniff the odor of an explosive, the trainer alerts with a loud click (using a clicker similar to those employed by some dog trainers) and gives the rat a food reward.
I love rats. I’m very much a rat person. They’re sweet, clean, and falsely accused of being nasty to people, by in large. We have two sweet rats, Samwise Wunderkind and Maxamillian Fog, and they’re the perfect pets for our kids. That said, I think it might be a touch odd to have rats the size of our beefy house cats. Still, check out the picture — priceless.
It can reach up to anywhere from 4.5 to 6.8 kilograms (10-15 pounds) in weight. In its native Africa, this pouched rat lives in colonies of up to twenty, usually in forests and thickets, but also commonly in termite mounds. It is omnivorous, feeding on vegetables, insects, crabs, snails, and other items, but apparently preferring palm fruits and palm kernels.
Unlike domestic rats, it has cheek pouches like a hamster. These cheek pouches allow it to gather up several kilograms of nuts per night for storage underground. It has been known to stuff its pouches so full of date palm nuts so as to be hardly able to squeeze through the entrance of its burrow. The burrow consists of a long passage with side alleys and several chambers, one for sleeping and the others for storage. The Gambian pouched rat reaches sexual maturity at 5–7 months of age. It has up to four litters every nine months, with up to six offspring in each litter. Males are territorial and tend to be aggressive when they encounter one another; otherwise, this rodent is extremely friendly and has become popular as an exotic pet.
It is intelligent, social and can be very gentle if handled from an early age.
In Africa, it is routinely eaten as bushmeat. It is (along with other mammals) referred to by the pidgin name of “beef”.