Cambodia unveiled the world’s first statue honoring a landmine-detecting rat

Highly unusual!

"Cambodia unveiled the world’s first statue honoring a landmine-detecting rat, a rodent named Magawa who sniffed out more than 100 landmines during a five-year career before retiring and dying in 2022."

Monday, April 6, 2026 - Join The Flyover

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There’s about one rat in NYC for every three humans. What do they do all day long? How are they different from lab rats?

That is a lot of rats in the city! What a research topic!

"... There’s about one rat in NYC for every three humans—and the rats’ numbers keep climbing. “They’re rugged, and they’re New Yorkers themselves: persistent and resilient and able to thrive in a very extreme environment,” computational neuroscientist Ralph Peterson told Scientific American . The vast majority of what’s known about their behavior comes from laboratory studies. He and his colleagues wondered just how well those findings extrapolate to the real world. So, they set up thermal cameras and ultrasonic recorders to eavesdrop on rats in three city locations—a park, a sidewalk, and a subway platform—and created AI tools to analyze and interpret the wealth of data they obtained. ...

Their findings ... suggest that city rats are far more vocal than previous studies would have predicted. “They’re just kind of screaming to each other, but we just don’t hear it” because it’s too high-pitched for our ears  ...  The rats were loudest in the subway, perhaps raising their voices to be heard over the ambient noise. Indeed, whenever the city’s volume turned up, the rats’ did, too. ..."

From the abstract:

"Urban rats are highly adaptable, thriving in the dynamic and often inhospitable conditions of modern cities. Despite substantial mitigation efforts, they remain an enduring presence in urban environments, yet surprisingly little is known about the daily lives and behavioral strategies that underlie their success.

Here, we conducted fieldwork on free-ranging rats in New York City, using thermal imaging and ultrasonic audio recordings. We apply cutting-edge artificial intelligence techniques to capture high-resolution movement patterns and generate 3D reconstructions of foraging environments including subways, streets, and parks.

We characterize social vocalizations across environmental contexts, and compare the patterns of social communication observed in NYC rats to the distribution of rodent vocalizations reported in the literature. This work provides a foundation for translating techniques and theories of rodent cognition from the lab to urban ecological settings."

ScienceAdviser

New York City’s Rats Have a Secret Nightlife—And a Language Humans Can’t Hear "A new preprint field study reveals that New York City’s rats aren’t just survivors—they’re talkative city dwellers with their own hidden nightlife. Mapping their movements and conversations could offer insights to transform urban planning and pest control"

Computational Urban Ecology of New York City Rats

Fig. 1 New York City citizen reports of rat sightings

Fig. 2 Groups of rats foraging in NYC environments observed using thermal imaging.

Mouse Brain Map Reveals Neural Network

Amazing stuff! Very recommendable! I believe they mapped all the intricacies within one cubic millimeter of the mouse brain. Next, mapping the whole mouse brain.

Hero rat sets Guinness World Record for detecting landmines

Amazing stuff! More rats please!

How many trained rats will be needed for the Ukraine?

"Meet Ronin. Ronin has detected 109 landmines and 15 items of unexploded ordnance since 2021. That’s according to both APOPO, the charity that trained the African giant pouched rat, and the Guinness Book of World Records, which declared Ronin the new record holder. He’s currently working in Preah Vihear Province in Cambodia, one of the most heavily mined countries in the world.  ..."

Hero rat sets Guinness World Record for detecting landmines "We salute Ronin, who has sniffed out 109 landmines and 15 other kinds of unexploded ordinance."

APOPO (Anti-Personnel Landmines Detection Product Development organisation)

Ronin the rat, at work in Cambodia.

Rats use ultrasound to boost their fine sense of smell for dynamic social interactions

Amazing stuff!

"... For decades scientists have recorded rodents vocalizing at ultrasonic frequencies, which is believed to be a form of communication and might help them find mates. It might even be a kind of laugh, since they also do it when researchers tickle them, according to one of the most endearing studies of recent years.

In a new study, scientists ... have identified another potential, unexpected benefit of rodents’ ultrasound pulses. The animals could use these sounds to stir up particles in the air around them, which they can quickly inhale to boost their already strong sense of smell. ...

The researchers were first inspired to investigate the idea by previous studies into how rodents navigate their environment. It was found that the animals would usually sniff the air immediately after making each ultrasound vocalization (USV). ..."

"... Vibroacoustics, or artificially produced ultrasonic vibrations, cause airborne particles to cluster, leading Mercado to suggest that rodents are using USVs to create odor clusters enhancing the reception of pheromones (chemical signals), thus making it easier for the vocalizer to detect and identify friends, strangers, and competitors. ..."

From the highlights and abstract:

"Highlights

• Rodent vocalizations could contribute to a unique mode of active olfactory sensing.

• Ultrasonic vocalizations may affect how rodents smell by clustering inhaled odorants.

• Coordinating sniffing with sound production might enhance reception of pheromones.

Abstract

Chemosensation via olfaction is a critical process underlying social interactions in many different species. Past studies of olfaction in mammals often have focused on its mechanisms in isolation from other systems, limiting the generalizability of findings from olfactory research to perceptual processes in other modalities. Studies of chemical communication, in particular, have progressed independently of research on vocal behavior and acoustic communication. Those bioacousticians who have considered how sound production and reception might interact with olfaction often portray odors as cues to the kinds of vocalizations that might be functionally useful. In the olfaction literature, vocalizations are rarely mentioned. Here, we propose that ultrasonic vocalizations may affect what rodents smell by altering the deposition of inhaled particles and that rodents coordinate active sniffing with sound production specifically to enhance reception of pheromones. In this scenario, rodent vocalizations may contribute to a unique mode of active olfactory sensing, in addition to whatever roles they serve as social signals. Consideration of this hypothesis highlights the perceptual advantages that parallel coordination of multiple sensorimotor processes may provide to individuals exploring novel situations and environments, especially those involving dynamic social interactions."

Rats use ultrasound to boost their sense of smell, suggests new study

‘Use the force,’ Mickey: Study suggests that ‘Jedi’ rodents remotely move matter using sound to enhance their sense of smell (original news release) "It’s so far off the scale of what we know … it almost seems like magic,’ says University at Buffalo researcher Eduardo Mercado III"

Do rodents smell with sound? (no public access)