Animal Highlight: Naked Mole rat
By Isak LASTNAME
Animal highlight: The Naked mole rat
Overview:
– CLASS: Mammalia
– ORDER: Rodentia
– FAMILY: Bathyergidae
– GENUS: Heterocephalus
– SPECIES: glaber
The naked mole rat also known as a sand puppy or heterocephalus glaber are hardy animals capable of surviving extreme conditions despite looking like elderly rodents. They are very mysterious as they have many abilities and capabilities that we still cant explain and studies are still being conducted on them that could greatly benefit mankind.
Environment:
Naked mole rats are native to east africa living in the dryer parts of tropical grasslands primarily Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia. They live underground and do not willingly go to the surface spending the entirety of their lives beneath our feet. They solely consume their own poop and plant roots and often do not completely consume them to leave more for later, and when I say they solely consume plant roots I mean it they don’t even drink water. Their homes are well organised tunnels with different segment serving different purposes and outward stretching tunnels leading to resources, despite being virtually blind they have no trouble navigating their homes.
Disposition:
Naked mole rats are social animals with a status structure similar to that of some insects with them having a eusocial colony and queen they serve and which is solely responsible for the reproduction of the species, this unique among mammals with them being the only ones to have such a structure. Queens actively suppress the creation of new queens thru unknown means making them incapable of reproduction until he queen dies or until a female has distanced themselves from the queen for a prolonged period of time (about 8 days). Queens are bigger than any other naked mole rat and live longer with normal naked mole rats living up to 30 years. Queen are the core of their society not only birthing new generations (11-20+ in a litter) but marking their citizens with their poop which creates a united identity for them. When a new queen forms when there is already a queen or if after a queen dies more than 1 develop they will fight to the death till only 1 is left. Naked mole rats are no strangers to mass genoside, being extremely territorial if they smell a naked mole rat whose cent dose not match their queens poop they will fight it to the death making for epic wars when 2 or more colonies accidentally grow too close. Every naked mole rat has a job and they are as follows Queen, food scout, tunneler, soldier, baby care taker, and the queens select mates.
Quirks:
Naked mole rats are the definition of unique both mentally and physically. When you imagine a world after a nuclear apocalypse you are probably thinking of roaches dominating the remenants of our world but truth is even they are unlikely to survive as they have a limited endurance although be it high to radiation unlike the naked mole rat that not only is highly resistant to radiation but radiation dose not cause their cells to mutate. You would not think this by looking at them but naked mole rats do not age, they will grow and develop but their cells will not slowly degenerate and the chance of death dose not go up as they age, scientists are still studying this phenomenon and belive it might be the key to do away with aging for human kind greatly increasing our life spans. Although highly inbred the naked mole rat has exemplary fortitude being immune if not near invulnerable to most cancers diseases, and toxins, in addition they are immune to many types of pain and rarely get hurt because of their stretchy loose skin. Perhaps one of the naked mole rats strangest qualities is that it is capably of as scientists describe it “turning into a plant”, you see living underground means little to no oxygen so they have adapted to surviving on minute amounts of it but when the environment is devoid of oxygen their bodies undergo a transformation that slows it down but allows it to use specialised sugars in its blood as fuel opposed to
oxygen and it can do this up to 18min before dying of asphyxiation, it is the only animal in the world that can do this.
Did you know naked mole rats:
- wheis less than a penny as a pup.
- Has 17 different vocalisations.
- Teeth are located outside of their mouth.
- ¼ of their muscle is located at their jaw.