African giant pouched rat. Cheek pouches. (not marsupial). Poor eyesight so the sniffing is presumably evolutionary advantage for the niche they'd normally occupy.

Given enough time, I wonder what other social adaptive qualities could emerge in a species like this? Domestication of dogs and cats had huge longterm upsides for both species and humans. Most rats by number are now co-occupants of human space but by species I'd be less sure. I had no idea how big the genus is until I dived into the rabbit hole.

(If you like large rats, look out for the Rakali or water-rat: web footed, and quite large. They live in the lake of Canberra amongst other places. I don't think they are trainable or economically exploitable beyond nature tourism. They are very very cute. Like Otters sort-of, but .. rats)

These pouched rats are very cute. And doing amazing work.