These heroic rats detect land mines. Now they might help save an endangered anteater.

The pangolin, an endangered anteater that is one of the world's most poached animals, could use a hero. Fortunately, a big rat is training for the job.Actually, 11 African giant pouched rats are. At a research center in central Tanzania, the 2-foot-long rodents are learning to detect the smell of pangolins' armor-like scales, which are smuggled to Asia for use in sham traditional remedies. If the rats succeed, they and their twitching noses could eventually deploy to ports, national park borders