#giant pouched rats

[uncharismatic-fauna]

(Bonus) Uncharismatic Fact of the Day

If you like rats, you'll love the Gambian pouched rat, because there is a lot to love! It is the world's largest rat, weighing anywhere from 1.0 and 1.4 kg (2.2 and 3.1 lb). They are named for their equally impressive cheek pouches, which they use to hoard large quantities of food inside their burrows.

(Image: A Gambian pouched rat (Cricetomys gambianus) by Aubrey Kelley)

Want to request an uncharismatic critter? Just send me proof of donation to any of these vetted fundraisers for Palestinian refugees!

[grrlscientist]

Dear rat, did you ever know that you're my hero?

Since the early 2000s, Apopo’s African giant pouched rats have been using their acute sense of smell to sniff out landmines & detect TB in sputum samples. Now, they are search-and-rescue specialists too

[milkdongcomics]

May Landmine-Sniffing Rat Magawa rest in peace. HERO RAT in " HEY HUMAN, GUESS WHAT THIS IS!? " Instagram 👈🏻 Facebook 👈🏻 Magawa (November 2013 – January 2022) was an African giant pouched rat that worked as a HeroRAT sniffing out landmines in Cambodia for the non-governmental organization APOPO (in English, Anti-Personnel Landmines Removal Product Development) which trains rats to detect landmines and tuberculosis. Magawa was the most successful landmine-sniffing rat in the organization's history, and received the PDSA Gold Medal in 2020.

[excited-insomniac]

Amazing work being done by APOPO 🐀

[southeastasianists]

The Anti-Personnel Landmines Removal Product, or APOPO, is a certified non-profit dedicated to saving lives and reclaiming land from land mines in Cambodia, Thailand, and six other countries. They rely on a unique tool for locating buried land mines: Giant African Pouched Rats.

APOPO was founded in 1997 by Bart Weetjens, a Belgian product designer who was searching for a more affordable way to help clear landmines. As an owner of pet rats, he knew that they were intelligent, social creatures with a keen sense of smell, and reasoned that they could be trained to detect buried landmines, small arms, and unexploded ordnance.

The group's HeroRATs, as they call them, are specially trained to sniff out mines (and tuberculosis). They can smell as little as one trillionth of a gram of TNT a meter deep in the ground. This incredible nonprofit has drastically increased both safety and productivity in the finding of unexploded ordnance. An area the size of a tennis field would take a human about four days to search, while the same area can be covered in 30 minutes by one rat.

The APOPO Visitor Center is centrally located, and shares a variety of engaging and powerful history within the Vietnam War and the different global roles within this war. Visitors can see a rat in action, watch an educational video, and hold one of the many trained super-rats at this location in Siem Reap.

[dandelionsresilience]

Dandelion News - November 1-7

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $kaybarr1735 or check out my Dandelion Doodles on Patreon!

1. Climate Initiatives Fare Well Across the Country Despite National Political Climate

“[California voters approved] a $10 billion bond measure to boost climate resilience across [the] state[…. Hawai’i] voters cast their ballots in favor of establishing the [climate] resiliency fund, with money for the project coming from existing property tax revenue.“

2. ‘You have to disguise your human form’: how sea eagles are being returned to Severn estuary after 150 years

“[… To avoid imprinting,] the handlers will wear long robes and feed the young eagles chopped rabbit and other meat with bird hand-puppets. […] Williams hopes that restoring eagles to the top of the food chain in the estuary will create a more balanced, thriving ecosystem.”

3. 10 states voted on pro-abortion referendums. 7 of them passed

“New York voters overwhelmingly approved the Equal Rights Amendment, adding [… among other characteristics] gender expression, pregnancy, and pregnancy outcomes to anti-discrimination laws. […] In deep-red Missouri and Montana, voters also enshrined abortions protections in their state constitutions.”

4. Giant rats could soon fight illegal wildlife trade by sniffing out elephant tusk and rhino horn

“”Our study shows that we can train African giant pouched rats to detect illegally trafficked wildlife, even when it has been concealed among other substances[.…] They can easily access tight spaces like cargo in packed shipping containers or be lifted up high to screen the ventilation systems of sealed containers,” Szott explained.”

5. Sarah McBride wins Delaware U.S. House seat, becoming the first out trans member of Congress

“McBride spearheaded Delaware’s legislation to ban the “gay and trans panic” defense as a state senator [… and] helped to pass paid family and medical leave, gun safety measures, and protections for reproductive rights.”

6. Critically endangered Sumatran elephant calf born in Indonesia

“Indonesian officials hailed the births and said they showed conservation efforts were essential to prevent the protected species from extinction. […] Sumatran elephants are on the brink of extinction with only about 2,400-2,800 left in the world, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature.”

7. Sin City is Going Green

“[Hotels there] have conserved 16 billion gallons of water since 2007, thanks to […] replacing grass with desert-friendly landscaping, installing water-efficient taps across all properties, and reusing water at aquariums and in the Bellagio Fountain.”

8. Gray squirrel control: Study shows promise for effective contraceptive delivery system

“[… T]he feeders have a very high level of species-specificity. […] The bait and monitoring system developed and tested in the study demonstrated that […] “spring was the only season tested where female squirrels were more likely to visit bait feeders than males. Spring coincides with a peak in squirrel breeding and is therefore a good time to deliver a contraceptive."”

9. Returning Grazing Land to Native Forests Would Yield Big Climate Benefits

“[… S]trategically regrowing forests on land where cattle currently graze […] while intensifying production elsewhere could drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions, with little hit to global protein production, a new study shows.”

10. Interior Department Strengthens Conservation of American Bison Through New Agreement with Canada and Mexico

“Approximately 31,000 bison are currently being stewarded by the United States, Canada and Mexico with the goal of conserving the species and their role in the function of native grassland systems, as well as their place in Indigenous culture.”

October 22-28 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[r04ch4ch3]

these guys are awesome btw. they can find bombs and illness with their noses & they have cheek pockets to stuff food in like hamsters. also they're literally big rats.

im my dreams i was talking to my mom about african pouched rats.

[tiger-in-the-flightdeck]

Apopo has introduced three new HeroRATS available for 'adoption.'

Baraka and Ronin are both mine detection rats, while Tamasha is a TB detection rat. Baraka and Tamasha are both based in Tanzania and Ronin works in Cambodia.

These African Giant Pouched Rats can scent and detect landmines safely in an area the size of a tennis court in 30 minutes. It would take a human using a metal detector 4 days to cover the same area. The rats are small enough that they don't trigger the mines, keeping both the animals and their handlers safe. The TB detection rats can do the work of a human technician running microscopic examination of sputum samples over 4 days in 20 minutes.

Some people might remember Magawa, the HeroRAT who was presented with the PDSA Gold Medal, which is considered the highest honour of gallantry and bravery an animal can be presented with for acts of service.

You can 'adopt' one of the rats with a monthly donation towards their care and upkeep, or buy a gift ranging from a basket of bananas, a nesting box for breeding pairs, and covering the cost of a health check up. Look at how cute their 'Romantic Dinner For Two' for breeding pairs is:

[artemisblackwing]

Mousey on a Walk

We took Munin and Mousey for a walk in Sequoia national forest where the giant redwoods are in California. Mousey rested in his belt pouch the whole time, with his nose peeking out to smell everything. I will be posting a lot of pictures from the walk soon!

The Forest Road

(Munin is my African raven, and Mousey is my recently-acquired rat.)

[mindblowingscience]

Giant African pouched rats are as clever as they are cute. Trained them to wear little backpacks, they can rescue people from disaster areas in return for a treat.

They can also find landmines that need disarming, sniff out tuberculosis, and have even been recruited in the fight against wildlife poaching.

So handy are these intelligent mammals, we can't seem to breed enough of them. It's not just a problem with demand – the supply is also mysteriously limited.

While many fellow rodents are notorious for their ability to rampantly multiply, the pouched rats (Cricetomys gambianus) have proven frustratingly unprolific.

"We wanted to understand their reproductive behaviors and olfactory capabilities, because they have been so important in humanitarian work," explained behavioral ecologist Alex Ophir in 2019 when first looking into their breeding behavior.

Around a meter (3 feet) long from whiskers to tail-tip, the animals are more closely related to a genus of Madagascan rodents called antsangy, than true rats. Their life-span is also a relatively lengthy eight years, with some females holding off on breeding until they're four years old. Some will stop breeding again after a successful pregnancy.

Baffled, researchers took a closer look and found to everyone's astonishment many of the female rats hadn't merely sworn off more kids, they'd closed shop, sealing off their vaginas.

Continue Reading

[mandable-draws]

Click for better image quality

Image description under the cut

A digitally drawn character sheet done in greyscale of a four armed person riding a giant rat. The person is wearing multiple layers of robes and shawls, and is wearing a gasmask with glowing tubes coming from it. They are holding a bow in one hand, and are reaching for a arrow from the quiver on their back. They are sitting on a saddle on the rat's back. The rat is question is wearing plate armour along it's back, and has glowing vibes implanted in its side. The rat has a large amount of nicnacks hanging from the armour and saddle, including layers of fabric, books, pouches and various bottles, chains, skulls, lengths of parchments and coins tied to strings. The rat also has a large number of scars, and has metal claws on its feet along with metal spikes on its tail. Below the rat is the word "Artemis". Above the rat is a close up look at one of the pieces of parchment, a close up of the string of coins, and a size chart show the rat as being roughly 2.5m tall at the shoulder, and the person as being roughly 1.65m tall.

[leaf-dave]

The rats that detect land mines are African giant pouched rats! That's why Magawa retired at so much older than two years old lol

thank you this is delightful information

source

[mutant-distraction]

Trained African Giant Pouched Rats have found thousands of unexploded landmines & bombs. Researchers also trained these rats to detect tuberculosis. Most recently they are training them to sniff out poached wildlife trophies exported out of African ports.

source: Nature is Awesome

[ninjagecko72]

Drawing Splinter for today’s TMayNT prompt and all I can think about now is how massive rat dad could be if he were a different species of rat altogether.

Here I’m thinking canonically he’s a normal rat, like he started out as a normal rat in 03 which at most a rat is about 9 to 11 inches long including the tail and then he just mutates and turns into a 4 foot 10 inch rat person. I’m 5 foot 1 (or 2, don’t really know. I just know I’m around my mother’s height) so that’s kinda terrifying because I’m looking straight at him already. Just imagine him being a giant rodent and then he gets bigger than that.

I’m thinking of him possibly being a Gambian pouched rat. You know those HeroRats aka rats trained to sniff out landmines and rescue people from rubble?

Those things are about three feet long, (or 0.9 meters if you’re outside of the US).

Have Splinter be one of those, mutate to be an anthro rat, then let’s see how big he is then. I don’t know how tall he is, let alone how much weight he’d have.

I need someone to calculate this.

I said I was good at math but apparently I’m a liar and I can’t convert that for two shells.

Anyways, I’ll just leave that there. I’ve got Rat dad to finish drawing and if I ever make my own iteration (which I doubt will happen anytime soon since I got a TMNG fic and a Ninjago fic to work on), then I’ll figure out Splinter’s sizing and looks then.

Now let’s get back on the program.

[oliversrarebooks]

I love rats too! Out of curiosity, do you have a favorite kind (fur pattern, breed, anythingn like that)? Personally, I would never get one because I don’t really have the resources to take care of an exotic pet, but I’ve been obsessed with african giant pouched rats ever since I read about the bomb-sniffing rats when I was a kid

I don't actually know much about different rats, I just think they're cute. Like snakes.

[ms-newvegas]

Hold me accountable when I’m not high I need to post a donation link and info for the APOPO hero rats that detect landmines including in Cambodia. I think they have over sixty rats in just there alone right now. They also have some that detect tuberculosis. Anyway it’s because it’s a great cause and an issue on people’s minds. And they definitely know how to make you want to donate, those African giant pouched rats are incredibly cute and amazing