Everything about Naked Mole Rat totally explained
The
naked mole rat (
Heterocephalus glaber), also known as the
sand puppy, or
desert mole rat is a burrowing
rodent native to parts of
East Africa and the only
species currently classified in
genus Heterocephalus. It is notable for its
eusocial lifestyle, nearly unique among
mammals (only the
Damaraland mole rat shares the trait), and for a highly unusual set of physical traits that enables it to thrive in a harsh, underground environment; including a lack of pain sensation in its skin, and a nearly
cold-blooded metabolism.
Physical description
Typical individuals are 8–10
cm long and weigh 30–35
g. Queens are larger and may weigh well over 50 g, the largest reaching 80 g. They are well-adapted for their underground existence. Their eyes are just narrow slits, and consequently their eyesight is poor. However, they're highly adapted to moving underground, and can move backwards as fast as they move forwards. Their large, protruding teeth are used to dig. Their lips are sealed just behind their teeth while digging to avoid filling their mouths with soil. Their legs are thin and short. They have little hair (hence the common name) and wrinkled pink or yellowish skin.
The naked mole rat is well adapted for the limited availability of
oxygen within the tunnels that are its habitat: its
lungs are very small and its blood has a very strong affinity for oxygen, increasing the efficiency of oxygen uptake. It has a very low respiration and metabolic rate for an animal of its size, thus using oxygen minimally. In long periods of hunger, such as a drought, its metabolic rate can reduce by up to 25 percent.
The naked mole rat is unique among mammals in that it's virtually
cold-blooded; it can't regulate its
body temperature at all and requires an environment with a specific constant temperature in order to survive.
The skin of naked mole rats lacks a key
neurotransmitter called
Substance P that's responsible in
mammals for sending
pain signals to the
central nervous system. When naked mole rats are exposed to acid or
capsaicin, they feel no pain. When injected with Substance P, however, the pain signaling works as it does in other mammals, but only with capsaicin and not with the acids. This is proposed to be adaptation to the animal living in high levels of
carbon dioxide due to poorly ventilated living spaces, which would cause acid to build up in their body tissues.
Ecology and behavior
Distribution and habitat
The naked mole rat is native to the drier parts of the tropical grasslands of East Africa, predominantly South
Ethiopia,
Kenya, and
Somalia.
Clusters averaging 75-80 individuals live together in complex systems of burrows in arid African deserts. The tunnel systems built by naked mole rats can stretch up to two or three miles in cumulative length.
Social structure and reproduction
Naked mole rat is one of the two species of mammals that exhibit
eusociality. They have a complex social structure in which only one female (the queen) and one to three males reproduce, while the rest of the members of the colony function as workers. As in certain bee species, the workers are divided along a continuum of different worker-caste behaviors instead of discrete groups. the naked mole rats feed primarily on very large
tubers (weighing as much as 1000 times the body weight of a typical mole rat) that they find deep underground through their mining operations, though they also eat their own feces (
coprophagia).
Conservation status
Naked mole rats are not threatened. Despite their tough living conditions, naked mole rats are quite widespread and numerous in the drier regions of
East Africa.
Though seen living up to 20 years, their lifestyles in those situations consist of mostly sleep.
In popular culture
- A naked mole rat named Rufus is featured in the Disney Channel cartoon Kim Possible.
- The Errol Morris documentary Fast, Cheap and Out of Control features a naked mole rat specialist.
- A children's book, The Naked Mole-Rat Letters, by Mary Amato, is about a young girl who sends fabricated e-mails to her father's girlfriend, a zookeeper.
- The consumer website Consumerama awards a weekly "Naked Mole-Rats of Marketing Award" for shameless consumer abuse.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Naked Mole Rat'.
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