Mammals

Naked Mole Rat

The naked mole-rat, a strange creature with tiny eyes, defies conventions with its underground life in colonies, highlighting the importance of underground biodiversity and astonishing adaptations.

a truly exceptional rodent

immunised against cancers and insensitive to pain

This rodent is truly exceptional! Living in large underground colonies, within a vast network of tunnels, it hardly needs to see and its eyes are therefore atrophied; on the other hand, its hearing and its sense of smell are highly developed.

The skin, hairless, is particularly flexible and resistant to wounds. The Naked Mole Rat lives for 20 to 30 years (in captivity), which corresponds to more than 500 years for a human being! It is completely immunised against cancers and it is insensitive to pain.

Its social organisation resembles that of various social insects (termites, ants): only one female (the “queen”) reproduces, with a harem of males. The other individuals are divided into classes: soldiers, workers, nurses… which, in addition to their “professional” function, also have a different morphology, unique among mammals.

The Naked Mole Rat is vegetarian, eating the roots of savannah plants, which also provide it with water: so it never drinks. Not being a ruminant, it improves the digestion of cellulose-rich diet by eating a part of its excrements in order to digest them a second time.