A platoon of twitching noses.

One person's vermin is another's life-saver. In Mozambique, Gambian giant pouched rats are being trained to sniff for buried land mines left from a 17-year civil war that ended in 1992. The rats in training are outfitted in tiny harnesses and hitched to clotheslines, Their tails whip to and fro as they lope up and down the lines, whiskers twitching, noses tasting the air. Their reward for finding a dummy mine: a piece of banana and an affectionate pat. Why use rats? They're abundant, cheap, and at three pounds, they're too light to detonate mines accidentally. They can detect land-mine aromas better than a machine. Unlike even the best mine-detecting dog or human, they are relentlessly single-minded. "Throw a stick for a dog to fetch, and after 10 times the dog will say, 'Get it yourself, buddy,'" says rat trainer Frank Weetjen. "Rats will keep working as long as they want food." If the Mozambican authorities approve, the rats will move at year's end from dummies to live minefields. Much work awaits them. According to some estimates, some 100 million mines have been laid worldwide. More than 10,000 mines were discovered last year alone in Mozambique, and mine explosions killed or injured 14 people there.