The rodents use their smell to locate the threat, scratch the earth to alert people

Sep 21, 2012 13:23 GMT  ·  By

Most of the time, rats are frowned upon by people, primarily because they are argued to spread diseases and destroy harvests.

However, one organization now makes use of Africa's giant rats for one very noble purpose: these animals can help people find and dismantle land mines in Mozambique.

Thus, several giant rats have been trained to rely on their sense of smell in order to identify the exact location of various land mines, and then simply scratch the ground so that the people accompanying them would know exactly what to do next.

Sources inform us that the people in Mozambique live under continuous threats due to a decades-long civil war which left the lands in this part of the world all “packed up” with explosives.

Therefore, it comes as good news that help can be provided by a bunch of rodents most people tend to regard as pests.