Date: 3 Jun 2026
Topic: Science
Codebreakers are a fun way to build numeracy skills.
Naked mole rats use their teeth to dig miles-long burrows or tunnels through the rock-hard clay soil of East Africa. As creatures, they are eusocial and have very organized and communal roles and responsibilities. A colony of mole rats typically varies in size between 50 to 300 individuals.
In a colony, there is usually only one mother, who has given birth to potentially hundreds of children. Because of intense inbreeding, these children are genetically incredibly similar, sharing up to 80% of their DNA. This presents a major risk, as a single genetic vulnerability to a particular disease, for example, could mean fatality for the entire colony.
The children in the colony split among three primary roles. One group serves as the caregivers for the young. Another group consists of the workers, who dig and maintain tunnels and forage for food. The last group is the disperser moles, who typically are substantially fatter than the remainder of the moles. These moles have unusual brain chemistry whereby they aren't interested in contributing to the greater well-being of their colony. Instead, they leave the burrow, venturing into the wild with their tragic eyesight, in the hopes of finding a new burrow and mating with the queen who resides there.
These disperser moles save the species from genetic peril, as they introduce genetic variance between colonies of naked mole rats, should they survive the adventure.
Mole rats love to eat massive underground tubers, sustainably farming them from the inside out so the plants keep growing.