Are you a HeroRAT fan?

HeroRATs are African giant pouched rats trained by APOPO* to save lives. Their work is so important that I feature HeroRATs in the opening of the learning chapter in my Intro Psych textbook. Some rats have been trained to find unexploded landmines. Other rats have been trained to sniff out tuberculosis in sputum samples. A comparatively new project for APOPO is training their rats to find survivors in earthquake rubble.

Watch this 13-minute video to learn more about HeroRat training and how that training is being put to use in earthquake search and rescue. [Shout out to Cindy Fast, APOPO Head of Training and Innovation (PhD, UCLA; BA, Albion College). Learn more about Cindy from the APA Division 6 newsletter (Varholick, 2023).]

https://www.youtube.com/embed/rD-gV1if5E0

The rats are outfitted with a little backpack that contains a WiFi transmitter, GPS, microphone, camera, and speaker.

When I described this in a recent talk, an audience member said they weren’t sure how they’d feel if they were trapped in earthquake rubble and then had a talking rat appear. I saw their point. The little orange backpack would make me feel a bit better, though.

In this 7-minute video, Cindy Fast explains how HeroRATs are trained to find landmines.

While much of APOPO’s training is based in Tanzania, they have a visitor center near Siem Reap, Cambodia where you can learn about their landmine training and hold a HeroRAT. Yes, holding a HeroRat has been added to my bucket list.

While in Siem Reap, be sure to visit the 7-foot statue of Magawa, a HeroRAT who made 1.5 million square feet of land safe by finding over 100 buried explosives (Debczak, 2026). 

Get your HeroRAT fan gear

As a fundraiser, APOPO laid out some trays of paint and some small canvases. HeroRAT Rafiki was given the opportunity to show his artistic skill. (Watch him paint.) His artwork was auctioned off, but many people asked for merchandise. Get your own Rafiki-designed t-shirt, hoody, mug, etc.  

* APOPO is short for Anti-Persoonsmijnen Ontmijnende Product Ontwikkeling, which translates to Anti-Personnel Landmines Detection Product Development (APOPO, 2026).

References

APOPO. (2026). Got any questions? https://apopo.org/who-we-are/faqs/

Debczak, M. (2026, April 9). A small rodent hero left a giant legacy. Now, Cambodia honors this famous bomb-sniffing rat with a seven-foot statue. Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a-small-rodent-hero-left-a-giant-legacy-now-cambodia-honors-this-famous-bomb-sniffing-rat-with-a-seven-foot-statue-180988515/

Varholick, J. (2023, February). Spotlight on an early career psychologist: Cindy Fast, PhD trains African giant pouched rats to detect landmines and more. The Behavioral Neuroscientist and Comparative Psychologist. https://www.apadivisions.org/division-6/publications/newsletters/neuroscientist/2023/02/early-career