A Cornish animal expert is training a rat to detect landmines in Mozambique.
Rats have a highly acute sense of smell - and are small enough not to detonate mines when they find them.
Kofi, a Gambian pouched rat, will alert his handlers to any device by sitting on it until it is defused, reports The Sun.
Thirty sniffer rats are already successfully used in Mozambique, but Kofi is the first to be trained in Britain.
He has a 20-minute session each day at the Porfell Wildlife Park and Sanctuary near Liskeard, Cornwall.
Handler Wendy Winstanley rewards him for every find with slices of avocado.
Ms Winstanley said: "Kofi is amazing. People think of rats as vermin, but they are highly intelligent.
"Rats would be excellent at sniffing out bombs. At the moment we use dogs, but I think the rats would be much more effective."
A spokesman for HeroRats, which trains rats in Africa, said: "With their terrific sense of smell and trainability, rats provide a cheaper, more efficient and locally available means to detect landmines."
Rats have a highly acute sense of smell - and are small enough not to detonate mines when they find them.
Kofi, a Gambian pouched rat, will alert his handlers to any device by sitting on it until it is defused, reports The Sun.
Thirty sniffer rats are already successfully used in Mozambique, but Kofi is the first to be trained in Britain.
He has a 20-minute session each day at the Porfell Wildlife Park and Sanctuary near Liskeard, Cornwall.
Handler Wendy Winstanley rewards him for every find with slices of avocado.
Ms Winstanley said: "Kofi is amazing. People think of rats as vermin, but they are highly intelligent.
"Rats would be excellent at sniffing out bombs. At the moment we use dogs, but I think the rats would be much more effective."
A spokesman for HeroRats, which trains rats in Africa, said: "With their terrific sense of smell and trainability, rats provide a cheaper, more efficient and locally available means to detect landmines."
