Naked Mole Rat, The Social Subterranean Mammal.

Naked Mole Rate

The naked mole rat (Heterocephalus glaber) is a burrowing social rodent that is mostly found in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia in the grasslands of East Africa. Although he believed them to be mutated and malformed individuals, the German scientist Eduard Ruppell initially examined the peculiar anatomy and social life of this odd species in the 19th century.

Anatomy. 

The dominant queen is larger and has a longer body than the other individuals, which are typically 3 to 4 inches long. Males who are fertile are larger than male laborer's and have abdominal testes. The term "naked mole rat" refers to all individuals' nearly hairless and wrinkled pinkish to yellowish skin. On the body, there are only a few whiskers and sparsely dispersed hairs. Because they live underground, where they do not require hair to defend them from the sun's rays, they have lost hair.
Since they spend their entire lives in dark tunnels, their eyes are relatively small or primitive. To make up for the absence of their eyes, they have extremely sophisticated senses of touch and smell. Legs are short and narrow, but they are well adapted to easily move both forward and backward. Their body's most noticeable organs are large incisors that are employed for tunnel-digging. To keep earth from entering their mouths while they are digging, their lips tightly seal immediately behind their teeth. Given that they spend the majority of their time digging burrows, their jaw muscles are powerful and big. There is no external ear pinna on them.

Since they spend their entire lives in dark tunnels, their eyes are relatively small or primitive. To make up for the absence of their eyes, they have extremely sophisticated senses of touch and smell. Legs are short and narrow, but they are well adapted to easily move both forward and backward. Their body's most noticeable organs are large incisors that are employed for tunnel-digging. To keep earth from entering their mouths while they are digging, their lips tightly seal immediately behind their teeth. Given that they spend the majority of their time digging burrows, their jaw muscles are powerful and big. There is no external ear pinna on them.

Social system

The only mammal that displays a social structure akin to termites, where individuals of the colony are physically transformed into different castes to carry out different tasks and live their entire lives underground, is the naked mole-rat. Only one fertile female known as the queen breeds, rules, and regulates colony activity. The remaining colony members of both sexes are infertile and serve as workers; only one to three males may fertilise the queen. There are two different kinds of workers; the smaller ones are responsible for food gathering, nest care, and tunneling, while the larger ones guard the nest against intruders and predators. Larger individuals spend more time patrolling and protecting the colony from intruders than they do digging tunnels or obtaining food. Smaller people are more active and handle all the chores. A typical colony has 75 to 80 members, but some healthy colonies can have up to 300 members. These colonies live in a complex network of tunnels that can total up to 3-5 kilometer's in length.

 Tunneling System

The bare-chested mole rats spend their entire lives below in shadowy tunnels, never emerging to experience daylight. Their tunnel network is intricate and frequently extends over many kilometres at a depth of two to three feet. For the queen, young males, breeding workers, and workers for feeding, sleeping, and other colony operations, it has a number of chambers. Additionally, there are chambers where the colony stores the food it has obtained while burrowing for later use. In order to prevent contagious infections, there is also a separate, separated communal defecation place in the tunnels.In order to defend the colony and deter invaders, tunnel systems are shut off from the outside world, however this deprives the burrows of oxygen. The naked mole-rat, however, is well acclimated to the tunnels' low oxygen environment. After a rain, when the soil is moist and conducive to easy tunneling, mole rats enlarge their burrows.

Food

The underground parts of plants, such as sizable tubers, bulbs, and rhizomes that are revealed while tunnelling, are consumed by naked mole rats. Because the majority of their meal consists of cellulose, like termites, they have symbiotic bacteria in their intestines that help them digest it. Because vertebrates are unable to digest cellulose, they must rely on microorganisms to do it. The young must consume other people's faeces in order to acquire the cellulose-digesting bacteria for their gut flora.

Share this post