9 jaw-dropping facts about naked mole rats

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3 years ago

Naked mole rats (Heterocephalus glaber) are what scientists call eusocial animals: adults live in groups and care for their young cooperatively, and only certain individuals get the privilege of producing those young. Ants and bees are more famous examples—the behavior is mostly seen among insects. There are only two mammalian species considered truly eusocial, and both are species of mole rat.

So, yes: queen-bee-style, the most dominant mole rat ladies fight off competitors for the right to bear their colony’s young (while everyone else does the actual child-rearing) by, well, breeding as fast as possible. At the National Zoo, this struggle brought the adult brood down from 17 to 13 over the course of a few months.


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