Giant African rats may soon be the key to fighting illegal wildlife trafficking. New research from nonprofit APOPO, published Oct. 29, shows that African giant pouched rats can be trained to identify ...

From land mine detection to sniffing out illegally trafficked wildlife parts, a group of trained African giant pouched rats in Tanzania is proving a valuable partner for humans, Mongabay’s Lucia ...

Without being able to talk to each other, rats use sniffing as one way to answer key questions about strangers. Is that a female? Can I mate with her? Is this one sick? What did he eat? — All of this ...

(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 ...

Smugglers of pangolins, elephant tusks and rhino horn, meet your match: the sniffing rats. Conservationists in Tanzania are training the rodents to smell trafficked animal parts and illegal timber in ...

African giant pouched rats can detect illegally trafficked wildlife, even when it has been concealed among other substances. Source: APOPO, used with permission. The scale of the illegal wildlife ...