They are quite often scary, considered as pests, and carriers of viruses.
But despite the bad publicity, these furry little creatures still have plenty of good in them.
For instance, this rat has been hailed a hero for sniffing out unexploded booby traps and landmines and saving thousands of lives in Cambodia.
The rodent, named Magawa, is the first animal from his species to be awarded a prestigious gold medal for his tenacity and courage in the field.
The big African pouched rat has unearthed almost 40 landmines and 28 undetonated materials in his illustrious career. It is estimated that up to 6 million landmines are scattered across Cambodia.
The British veterinary charity People's Dispensary for Sick Animals on Friday presented him with the Gold Medal for "life-saving devotion to duty, in the location and clearance of deadly landmines in Cambodia," BBC News reported.
Years of conflict have left the Southeast Asian nation cluttered up with millions of landmines, undetonated ordnance, and other deadly remains of war that still maim or kill many people each year.
There have been more than 64,000 victims of landmine explosions in Cambodia. It has the biggest number of amputees per capita in the world, with over 40,000.
The country, with help from other nations, has spent decades slowly clearing its fields of explosive ordnance but it's very laborious and perilous work.
This is where the seven-year-old Magawa is good at.
The rat was trained by the Anti-Personnel Landmines Detection Product Development, a non-government group founded in Belgium and is based in Tanzania. It trains rodents like Magawa to dig up the scent of chemicals used in explosive materials and point their location to their handlers.
With his unparalleled sense of smell and memory, Magawa can clear up an area the size of a basketball court in half an hour -- a work that would take the average person four days even with the use of a metal detecting device, the charity revealed.
Rodents like Magawa undergo approximately nine months of training, his handlers said, adding that these animals have a life span of up to eight years.
According to his trainers, Magawa - born and raised in Tanzania - weighs just over a kilogram and is 28 inches long. While he is way bigger compared to rat species, Magawa is compact and not too heavy when they walk through the fields of mines.
Around 3 million undetonated landmines are still lying across Cambodia, based on estimates by the PDSA. Some reports said only 50 percent of its land has been declared safe from the mines, a congressional document disclosed.
