by Marc Zev

Created on: May 11, 2007   Last Updated: May 15, 2007

If we're talking funny as in bizarre, then the naked mole rat is a clear winner. Naked mole rats live in large burrows in the sub-Saharan regions of East Africa, and is neither a mole nor a rat; although, it is a rodent.

The naked mole rat (NMR) is one of only two species of mammals that exhibit "hive" behavior. The naked mole rat community is a queen dominated society. The queen is larger than the peasant NMR. Just like in a bee hive or an ant colony, the queen's job is to keep the community populated. However, unlike in insect communities, the queen not only does all the mating, but is also the Commander in Chief of the community.

Naked mole rat queens are not demure like Queen Elizabeth II. They are more like the "Off with her head!" type, like the Queen of Hearts in "Alice in Wonderland".

The queen spends here time running around inside the colony's burrow directing the workers in what they should be doing. She will nip and bite and push. This pretty much keeps all of her subject stressed. The queen stresses the workers our to intimidate and control them; also, to keep other females from being able to mate. When the females are stressed out, their reproductive systems shut down. Of course, if the stress goes away the females will be able to breed, so the queens are extremely hostile towards any females that behave like a queen, or produce hormones for becoming a queen.

Typical naked mole rats are 3 to 4 inches (8 to10 cm) long and weigh 1 to 1 ounces (30 to 35 g). Queens are larger and weigh almost 2 oz (50 g). Naked mole rats have very little hair (hence the name) and wrinkled pinkish or yellowish skin. They are well-adapted for their underground existence. Their eyesight is very poor; however, they are highly adapted to moving underground, with their thin, short legs they can move backwards just as fast as they move forwards. They use their large, protruding teeth for digging. They seal their lips just behind their teeth while digging to avoid filling their mouths with soil.

The naked mole rat lives in a low oxygen environment within their tunnels. This would be a difficult place for most mammals to live; however, these animals have blood that has a very strong attraction to oxygen. This makes the small amount of available oxygen go a long way. Also, their metabolisms work relatively slowly for an animal of its size.

The naked mole rat is unique among mammals because it can't regulate its body temperature at all and requires an environment with a specific constant temperature in order to survive. In other words the naked mole rat is cold-blooded.

Naked mole rats are very xenophobic, and will attack intruders to their burrow. The NMR use their refined sense of smell to recognize members of the colony. You would think it would be difficult to recognize the hundreds of members of a community their individual smells, and it is. To make the identification task easier, the naked mole rats strive to all smell the same. To achieve a recognizable odor, naked mole rats spend a lot of time rolling about in the burrow's toilet chamber. They coat their bodies with the familiar scent of the colony's feces and urine, which is much easier to recognize.

In summary, naked mole rats are small almost hairless rodents the are not related to mole or rats. They live in a large queen dominated colony like insects and are cold-blooded. If that isn't enough, they also have a penchant for rolling around in feces. In my book naked moles rats are very funny indeed.

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