The rats have a very sensitive sense of smell. In the wild, rats can communicate over large distances using olfactory cues – and the rat’s nose is constantly active and moving. With its rather poor vision, the Cricetomys depends largely on its sense of smell. The rats can smell TNT in low concentrations and even when it’s buried under the ground (up to 15-20 cm). They can also detect the odour from a distance of about 1 meter. Apart from that, our trained rats are not distracted by other objects or odours as they specifically look for TNT/TB while ignoring other contamination.