Why This Adorable Rat Has Been Awarded A Gold Medal For Bravery

A fleet of armored technicians stand at the ready. They wield metal detectors while treading carefully over the ground beneath them. They’re looking for landmines – but they aren’t working alone. No, these experts rely on the honed sense of smell and trainability of rats to help them sniff out the deadly devices. Wait: did we just say rats?

An organization called APOPO (which translates into English as Anti-Personnel Landmines Detection Product Development) has a mission: to rid the world of its millions of landmines. And it’s come up with an ingenious program – a sniff-and-detect service helmed by a fleet of trained rodents. They’re all skilled, of course, but one rodent has risen above the rest.

Magawa – and the rest of APOPO’s rodent army – are African giant pouched rats, so they’re not the creepy critters you’d see scuttling across subway tracks or through back alleys. They can reach up to 3 feet in length, with half of that measurement made up by the creature’s extra-long tail.

These are some big rats, but that’s not the feature that drew landmine-detection teams to enlist their help. For one thing, Magawa and his friends have an incredible sense of smell, which means they can sniff out explosive devices. And they’re lightweight enough to walk up to a bomb without triggering its detonation. Thank god.

The fact that people can train rats to perform such tasks is a feat in itself. But Magawa has proven just how much a rodent can accomplish in such an unlikely role. The rodent, born in 2014 and shipped to Cambodia in 2016, has had five years on the job, and he has made some incredible strides in that time.