The secret weapon in Cambodia’s fight against landmines: Giant rats weighing over 3 pounds
In Cambodia, the country with the most landmines in the world, a giant rat named Ronin is just five years old but an expert at saving lives.
A giant African rat named Ronin has just entered the Guinness Book of World Records after setting an unprecedented first: detecting 109 landmines and 15 unexploded ordnance. And at just five years old, this super tracker still has time to continue saving lives.
Trained by the Belgian non-profit APOPO, Ronin is part of the HeroRATs program, in which specially trained rats help locate landmines and other explosive devices hidden in conflict zones.
Between August 2021 and February 2025, this rodent-exploiter expert meticulously inspected the grounds of Sror Aem commune in Cambodia’s Preah Vihear province, a region in the north of the country that is riddled with explosives after decades of war.
Thanks to his keen sense of smell and lightness — he weighs just 1.3 kg, enough to not detonate explosives — Ronin can cover the area of a tennis court in just 30 minutes, a task that would take a human with a metal detector between one and four days.
This little hero, with this feat, has surpassed the record of his predecessor, Magawa, another APOPO HeroRAT who detected 71 mines and 38 explosives before retiring in 2021, and passing away aged eight. Ronin, born in Tanzania in 2019, in addition to his talent in the field, according to the organization, has a friendly character and has a peculiar weakness: avocado, which is his favorite food. He is expected to continue digging up explosives for at least two more years before retiring.
A world riddled with mines
APOPO, which trains more than 100 giant rats like Ronin, operates in multiple war-torn countries, including South Sudan, Turkey, and Ukraine. Since 2000, its teams have removed more than 169,000 mines and explosive devices.
Currently, there are an estimated 110 million active landmines in more than 60 countries, with Cambodia alone hosting between four and six million of them. The humanitarian impact has been devastating: in 2023, more than 5,700 people were killed or injured by mines, many of them civilians and children.
Christophe Cox, APOPO’s executive director, is optimistic, writing for Smithsonian Magazine: “When we launched APOPO, it was thought that clearing the world of mines would take about 500 years. Today, if the world supports us, we could do it in this generation.”
With an annual average of 6,788 explosives detected and defused, and with “super rats” like Ronin, that dream may be a step closer.
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