they'll rat on you.....

The Police in Rotterdam are training and using rats to assist in crime involving gunshots. 

The rats can tell within minutes whether a suspect has gunpowder residue on his/her hands or clothing.

 

This used to take hours when done by the forensic lab. The rats will be used to make a quick result until the lab can confirm the findings.

We have only 650 smell genes, dogs have 1.093 and rats 1.493.

They have 5 brown (rattus norvegius)  rats at the moment, Derrick, Magnum, Poirot en Jansen & Janssen. They are very tame and come when called. 

The initiative for this project, Monique Hamerslag, traveled to Tanzania 
where Pouched rats (Cricetomyinae) are trained to sniff out land mines. 

In Cambodja the rats have covered and helped clear an area of 13 thousand hectare. Dogs are to heavy for the job, they'd explode the mines.

shrewd

Our cats often bring us 'presents' of mice and shrews.... which we can either rescue or dispose of.

Shrews are the smallest mammalian predators on Earth. The Etruscan shrew (Suncus etruscus), weighing only 2 grams, is the smallest living terrestrial mammal. 

They are so tiny that their energy expenditure per unit mass is the highest amongst all mammals, so much so that they require 3 times their own body weight in food just to stay alive, making them gram-for-gram the most voracious predators on Earth.





A shrew caravan. If a white-toothed shrew family is disturbed in its nest, then mum will flee, with her babies in a trail behind her, holding onto each other’s rumps.

<<<Pygmy Shrew  

The Piebald Shrew (Diplomesodon pulchellum)  

Giant Elephant Shrews

The Killer Shrew

watch the trailer 

OR the whole film

this is a film critic, not wanting to be caught on camera

canoodling

It has nothing to do with noodles or a canoe.The Urban Dictionary has a nice description:

'The act of enjoying anothers company by getting close to them. This generally takes place on a couch and activities include but are not limited to: whispering, giggling, hot gossip, pillow talk, and squeezies. It IS socially acceptable to canoodle in areas with others, to a minimal degree, even when some believe it is not.
Pillows and blankets are usually associated with canoodling as well. Some restrictions apply, results may vary'.



Perhaps from English dialect canoodle: donkey, fool, foolish lover


First Known Use: 1859,
BUT ANIMALS HAVE BEEN DOING IT FOREVER :~)