My God, the outrage, where is PETA when you need them:

MOROGORO, Tanzania - Far from the outbreak of monkeypox that shed light on a worrisome increase in exotic pets in the United States, Mathias and his African pouched rat pals are hard at work in rural Tanzania learning how to locate land mines.

In their little red, black and blue harnesses, they look like miniature sniffer dogs. But their trainers at Sokoine University of Agriculture say the giant rats can do a much better job.

"Rats are good, clever to learn, small, like performing repeated tasks and have a better sense of smell than dogs," said Christophe Cox, the Belgian coordinator of the rat training project.

When they succeed, they get bits of ripe bananas.

At least it's ripe banana.