When we think about police investigation, dogs are the only animal we associate with cops, but surprisingly there are other animals with amazing senses of smell that could help as well. For instance, trained mice were used during the old African wars to detect land mines. Presently, the latest research on African Elephants with the assistance of the U.S. Army Research Office revealed that elephants have a spectacular ability to identify explosives by sniffing them.
This amazing ability of elephants was discovered by a sniffing test, in which the animals had to smell some buckets. Some of these contained explosive 'TNT' and others contained distracting scents. When the elephants succeeded in recognizing the correct buckets, they were rewarded with a treat of marula - the favorite fruit of many elephants.
With this success in explosives detection, one co-owner of a game reserve remarked, "They work it out very, very quickly."
The head scientist of the U.S. Army Research Office, Stephen Lee, mentioned that another benefit of this training is that elephants memorize this training for a longer period than dogs. The sharp memory and explosive detecting skills of elephants were first noticed in 2002 in Angola.
That time was when numerous elephants returned to Angola after the end of war. Although peace was made, the lands of Angola were filled with minefields. Amazingly, many elephants avoided those minefield areas but it is not confirmed whether the avoidance was due to the bitter memory of elephant slaughtering or their sniffing skills.