Sometimes news stories appear that just seem improbable. One such was a report last week from The Washington Post quoting an item from China’s state-run outlet Chongqing Daily about a crack squad of squirrels that had been trained to sniff out drugs.

The US masthead also interviewed Yin Jin, a police dog handler in Chongqing who said that the squirrels had done an “excellent job” in drug detection exercises so far. Although it would probably be a while yet before they were deployed to actual drug busts.