Mines, TB no match for rats

SENSITIVE: AFRICAN RODENTS ARE BEING TRAINED FOR A HOST OF HUMANITARIAN MISSIONS

- Jack Denton

A man lies unmoving, slumped in the rubble of a simulated earthquake as an unlikely rescuer approaches: a rat with a backpack. Whiskers waving, the rat breezes past rubbish, toppled furniture and scattered clothes to find him and pull a trigger on its pack, alerting searchers above. Then, a resounding click. A survivor has been found. The search in Morogoro in Tanzania's Uluguru Mountains is over and the rat scurries out of the abandoned building to be rewarded with a banana.

A successful mission is complete for this African giant pouched rat being trained for search and rescue operations.

"Their sense of smell is incredible," said Fabrizio Dell'Anna, an animal behaviourist at Apopo, a Tanzania-based non-governmental organisation that trains the rats for lifesaving applications.