Super Rat: the record-setting rodent sniffing out landmines and saving lives

Ronin was born in Tanzania and deployed to Cambodia's Preah Vihear province, which has one of the highest landmine densities in the world. (Handout/AFP/APOPO/Getty Images via CNN)

Rats don’t always have the best reputations, but one named Ronin with a super sense of smell is working to change that.

Ronin and his landmine-sniffing rat pack are making a name for rodents everywhere by saving innocent civilians from hidden explosives.

The African giant pouched rat recently set a new world record for the most landmines detected by a rat. Between August 2021 and February 2025, Ronin uncovered 109 landmines and 15 other pieces of unexploded ordnance in a region close to Siem Reap in Cambodia, according to Guinness World Records.

“Ronin’s achievements are a testament to the incredible potential of rats,” his main handler Phanny told the Guinness publication.

Landmines are a major issue in former conflict zones. The explosive weapons, hidden in the ground, are designed to injure or kill anyone who passes over them. In Cambodia alone, they have caused more than 65,000 deaths and injuries since the fall of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime in 1979, according to the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor.

Their use is controversial because of their indiscriminate nature and the threat they pose for decades after a conflict has ended, killing and maiming and hampering land development in war-ravaged areas.

They are also notoriously difficult and dangerous to detect. That’s where rats come in; their high intelligence, speed and keen sense of smell make them adept at identifying explosives. They are also too light to trigger landmines.

It’s crucial work. An estimated 110 million landmines are still buried in over 60 countries around the world, said landmine detection nonprofit APOPO. In 2023, landmines caused 5,757 casualties globally — 37% of which involved children, according to the 2024 Landmine Monitor.

Ronin is one of more than 100 rats trained by APOPO to detect the scent of the explosive chemicals and point landmines out to their handlers.

The rats are highly versatile and have also been trained to detect tuberculosis in medical settings, helping to prevent the spread of infectious disease.

The Belgian nonprofit’s team of landmine-sniffing rats can search an area the size of a tennis court in 30 minutes – something that could take a deminer with a metal detector up to four days.

Ronin, who is 5 years old and was born in Tanzania, is much larger than your average pet rat. He is more than 2 feet long – about the length of a cat – and weighs 2.6 pounds, according to APOPO.

Cambodia’s Preah Vihear province, where Ronin was deployed has one of the highest landmine densities in the world following decades of conflict in the 20th century, including heavy bombing by the US during the Vietnam War.

The US dropped 2.7 million tons of ordnance – including cluster bombs and submunitions – in a four-year carpet-bombing campaign in Cambodia. Up to a quarter of the cluster bombs failed to explode, meaning they stayed active and dangerous but out of sight, according to a 2019 report by the US Congressional Research Service.

Despite years of demining efforts, there are still an estimated 4 to 6 million unexploded landmines in Cambodia, according to APOPO.

Ronin claims the world record from Magawa, another rat trained by APOPO who identified 71 landmines and 38 pieces of unexploded ordnance during his five-years of service. Magawa passed peacefully in January 2022.