WEBVTT - Naked Mole Rats: A Face Only a Mother Could Love 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:07.200 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:13.920 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:16.400 Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:21.880 should Know, part of our ongoing Amazing Animals edition. Maybe 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:26.760 the most robust rhinoceros like suite of all of our sweets. 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:30.280 Probably that are crime and punishment. 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:36.640 Sure, sure, but I think everybody can get behind you know, 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:40.520 sloths and elephants and not everybody's like sure. 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:43.479 Prison right or crime scene clean up? 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:48.800 Sure? Well that was a tough one. But today we're 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:52.040 adding to the animal one, and we're adding a good one. Chuck. 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:54.880 This is a great pick because thank you. We're talking 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:57.880 about naked mole rats. And they're one of those things 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:00.640 like narwhals where you're like, I've heard of it. I 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:04.200 know everybody's into him and everything, But unlike narwals, when 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:08.080 you do a little investigating into him, naked mule rats 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:10.399 are ridiculously interesting. 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:15.240 They are. And I think I mentioned this on an episode, 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:19.240 but where I got this idea it was long simmering 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:22.920 because the great Errol Morris documentary Fast, Cheap and out 0:01:22.959 --> 0:01:27.920 of Control, which have you seen it? No, it's a 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:31.120 great documentary. It's been around for a long time. And 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:37.000 in that documentary he takes I think three disparate professions 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:41.320 gentlemen who performed these professions, and also ties it into 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:44.560 an old lion tamer guy from a circus with like 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:48.240 footage and telling his story. There's like a robot scientist, 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:53.440 a topiary gardener, the aforementioned lion tamer from footage, and 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:58.000 then this guy who is a naked mole rat scientist. 0:01:58.320 --> 0:01:59.240 Oh yeah, what's his name? 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:02.720 I don't remember his name. I can picture his face 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:07.560 and looking at you know. When that documentary was, it 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:09.200 was pretty early on and kind of what we knew 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:10.959 about naked mole rat, so he was probably on the 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:12.040 leading edge, but. 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:15.120 On the leading edge, not the bleeding edge. 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:18.400 That's when I first sort of discovered the naked mole 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:22.200 rat and fell in love with what might be the 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:24.160 ugliest animal on earth. 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:28.520 For real, for real. Yeah. I saw somewhere that National 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:31.600 Geographic described them as bratwurst with teeth. 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:35.360 Oh Man, and apparently. 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:39.080 The guy who first described him, Edward Repel, back in 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:43.760 eighteen forty two. When he described him, other biologists were like, well, clearly, Repel, 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:46.560 you're dumb, because this has got to be a baby 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:50.640 of some sort of some other species, or these things 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:55.400 are diseased. They're not their own thing. And he said, no, really, 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:57.200 I think they're their own thing. And he turned out 0:02:57.240 --> 0:02:58.840 to be right. But that just goes to show just 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:02.200 how weird looking they are that even biologists were like, 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:03.480 what is this thing? 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:07.880 Yeah, like any naked animal, and there are a handful. 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:11.440 Is strange looking to people that are accustomed to mammals 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:16.200 with fur. Yeah, I should say mammals, but the naked 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:19.640 mole rat is I mean, boy, this thing is like 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:23.520 only a mother could love, is the saying. I think 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:25.480 a face and body for sure. 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:29.200 They all have the same mother pretty much, I do know. 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:30.000 Look at you. 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:32.480 Yeah, we'll get into that later. But dropping it in, 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:36.440 let's talk a little bit about the taxonomic classification of 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:38.040 naked mole rats, shall we. 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:42.360 Yeah, uh, take it away, because they used to be 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:45.960 classified differently, but they finally settled on giving them their 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:47.000 own little space, now right. 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:48.960 I don't know that they settled on it. I think 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:51.920 it's proposed, and not everybody in the naked mole rat 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:55.800 research community agrees on it. But they are rodents. They're 0:03:55.800 --> 0:04:00.760 in the order Rodentia. They're in the family bath there, Ergide, 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:06.240 I even practiced. That's so frustrating to have practiced it 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:09.040 out loud and still miffed it. 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:12.000 No, I think you got it, Beth Ergide. 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:13.920 Yeah, I got it the second time, but it should 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:15.400 have rolled off my tongue for as much as I 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:16.160 practiced it. 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:17.239 That never does. 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:22.880 So all of the family Bathi Ergiday are are located 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:26.720 in Sub Saharan Africa. Yeah, and uh, there's a bunch 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:29.119 of different kinds of mole rats. It's just the naked 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:33.039 morad is its own thing, and it's so distinct in 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:35.880 so many different ways that, like you were saying, some 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:38.839 naked morat scientists are like, there, we just need to 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:42.479 make their own family because right now they're a separate genus. 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:48.440 They're their own genus heterocephal Heterocephalida practice that one too, 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:52.760 But they're so different from the other members of the 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:55.480 family that they're like, we should not just classify them 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:57.880 as their own genus and species, We should classify them 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:01.000 as their own family. This one type of animals should 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:02.800 be its own family. Not everybody's on. 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:05.640 Board, Yeah, but I think everyone listening has a family 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:08.960 member that you know, they think maybe should be classified 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:10.720 as their own family. 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:18.440 Always naked buck teeth. Sure that family member rusty uncle Rusty. 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:21.560 Like you mentioned, the naked mole rats live throughout the 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:27.320 Horn of Africa, generally in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia, and 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:29.800 they are doing great. There are a lot of them. 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:31.520 This isn't one of those I feel like most of 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:35.400 the animals we cover have some sort of threatened designation, 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:39.440 but they're killing it and they're doing awesome. There's lots 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:39.800 of them. 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:42.560 One reason why is because the land that they live 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:48.400 under is so arid that it's not usually disturbed for 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:52.039 crop land, so they don't get into fights with farmers typically, 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:54.280 which would be a big problem for them because they 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:56.479 would eat all the farmers' crops and the farmers would 0:05:56.560 --> 0:06:00.320 kill them all. So because they don't really dwell where 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:03.320 humans tend to dwell, that's a big mark in their 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:04.200 favor from what I. 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:08.279 Saw, totally they I mean, hopefully you've looked up a picture, 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:09.880 like pulled off to the side of the road or 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:12.000 something if you're driving, to see a picture of these things, 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:14.240 so you have an idea of what we're talking about. 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:17.760 If not, do so, because you might think they look 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:22.000 like maybe a newborn guinea pig or something. Maybe, I 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:26.800 mean that's being kind, I guess, and that's the adults. Yeah, exactly. 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:31.240 But they did diverge from guinea pigs they believe, about 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:35.680 fifty million years ago, so they're related in a way, 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:37.680 but they, like you said, they really are their own thing. 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:40.560 Yeah, and they're pretty much not related to moles or rats. 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:43.719 It's their closest relative as guinea pigs, like you said. 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:47.200 And one of the things that really makes naked mole 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:52.960 rats special is that they are fossorial, which is a 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:57.920 type of animal that lives underground pretty much all the time. 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:01.080 They don't live underground and it's hot out and then 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:04.880 come out at night to feed or hunt. They live underground. 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:09.120 I'm sure plenty of them spend their entire lives underground, 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:12.720 and their lives are significant in length, as we'll see, 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:15.320 But that that's a big distinction because there's a lot 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:18.120 of animals that live underground but spend time above ground too. 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:19.480 Not naked mole rats. 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:22.920 No, they love it down there. And as we've covered 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:27.040 in what was the bios Spieliology episode, I think yeah, 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:29.000 and we also didn't we also do one on other 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:32.640 cave dwelling animals or was that that one? I think 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:34.920 it was that one, all right, either one or two 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:37.040 of those. But we you know, they have some features 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:41.000 that other animals who live generally deep underground for a 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:45.239 lot of their lives have, which is not really useless eyes. 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:48.960 I mean they have technically they have eyes. They can 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:53.280 sense bright and dark, but they're basically blind. And they 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:56.360 don't have ears really either. They have, you know, little 0:07:56.400 --> 0:07:59.840 tiny ear flaps if they have anything at all. They're 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:03.200 about three to four inches long, except for the queen, 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:05.720 who can be a bit bigger. Yeah, talk about the 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:08.840 queen because it's very very interesting. And then they have 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:12.280 a little short tail, sort of a taper tail, and 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:16.600 then a little piggy snout. But what's really like when 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:18.480 you look at a naked mole rat, the first thing 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:22.400 you're going to notice is they're naked and really wrinkly 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:25.280 and funny looking. And then those chompers up front. 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:29.600 Yeah, because their teeth if you look closely, they come 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:32.000 out of their face, not their mouth. 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:34.840 Yeah, they can close their mouth which they still had 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:35.480 their teeth out. 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:37.960 Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's an adaptation that they came 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:42.120 up with where they can use their teeth to dig 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:44.520 while their mouth is close, so they keep dirt from 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:45.839 getting in their mouths. 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:49.559 Yeah, it's amazing, And you dug up some extra stuff 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:53.360 which is pretty remarkable about those teeth. And we're going 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:55.400 to talk a little bit about the teeth, probably a 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:58.120 lot about the teeth, but they basically function as a 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:02.080 sense organ. Scientists have found that the Sommo man I 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:04.600 practiced that one too, So mattisensory cortex that's not even 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:07.960 a hard one, which is involved in the sense of touch, 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:10.800 is very, very large, and about a third of it 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:14.760 is dedicated to those incisors. So they actually feel through 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:15.360 those teeth. 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:17.840 Yeah they yeah, like you said, it's a sense organ. 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:20.840 That's really cool. They also use them not only to 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:23.560 sense the world, but also to carry stuff around. They 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:26.480 can use them like needlenose pliers. They can move them 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:30.600 independently in all sorts of different weird directions. They I 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:33.959 don't know of any other animal that has teeth as 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:35.840 a sense organ. It's pretty cool. 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:37.840 No, how about those jaws too. 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:41.480 So, because their teeth are so important to them, not 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:45.480 just for eating, but for digging and creating their habitats 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:51.600 and for defense too, their jaws. I think twenty five 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:55.240 percent of their entire muscle mass of their body is 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:59.319 in their jaws, specifically in the jaw muscle, the deep 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:03.960 massiter muscle. If you make if you put three fingers 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:08.679 upward on your cheek so that you're kind of making 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:12.680 that scouts on or thing. Sure, the finger closest to 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:15.920 you is just touching your ear, the outside of your 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:17.720 ear or where your ear touches your face. 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:18.520 I'm doing it. 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:22.439 And then you start making a chewing sound or chewing motion. 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:25.240 Do you feel how it's like your cheek is pushing 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:26.800 out against your fingers. 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:27.800 Beneath I do. 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:30.240 That's your mass And then do one other thing. Leave 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:33.120 your fingers there, don't move, but slide them up a 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:35.920 little further to your temple, and then do the same thing. 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:37.720 Do you feel that muscle. 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:40.920 Moving, Yeah, that's the headache button exactly. 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:43.880 That's your MASSI muscle as well, So we have them too, 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:46.480 but only about one percent of our muscle mass is 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:50.800 invested in our jaws. A quarter of their muscle mass 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:54.440 is invested in their jaw and specifically in the mass complex. 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:58.640 Yeah, it's amazing, and that makes those teeth. Basically, like 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:03.400 it's sort of like a shovel chisel combination. They can shovel. 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:10.080 It is shovel. They have tremendous power. Just Snoop Dogg 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:13.000 has that train work. So I think we could suit 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:15.880 for that. Uh and we'll be like, hey, go after 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:21.760 the naked mole rat. Snoop, I saved those sideburns years ago. Uh. 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:24.240 So they use them. You know, they're they're scraping, they're 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:27.280 always digging, they're always carrying dirt. Like you mentioned, they 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:29.000 can close their little lips because they don't want to 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:32.080 get dirt in their mouths, and they're always just sort 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:37.079 of at work digging tunnels. They're like Charles Bronson in 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:37.559 The Great. 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:40.960 Escape, right pretty much that's who they've modeled their entire 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:41.640 society on. 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:44.720 Yeah, and they do this in a little like an 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:45.480 assembly line. 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:45.839 Yeah. 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:47.920 They will gnaw into the earth and they will pass 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:52.200 dirt back, and eventually that dirt forms what else, a 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:52.680 mole hill. 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:55.360 Yeah. I saw those kind of like a conveyor belt. 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:58.360 So there's one mole or one naked mole rat at 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:00.839 the front doing all the digging, and there's a bunch 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:04.760 of mole rats following them that are sweeping like a 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:07.840 specific pile out and as they're sweeping it further and 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:11.720 further back, and as they're moving backward, they finally get 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:14.720 to the end, and then there's a larger mole rat 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:18.200 there's kicking it outside, forming that molehill you were talking about. 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:21.080 And then when the when the mole rat that's been 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:22.800 sweeping it to the guy who's kicking it out of 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:26.000 the tunnel, they climb back over the people in front 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:27.920 of them and go to the front of the line again. 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:31.000 So it is it's like this conveyor belt that's just tunneling, 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:33.839 like boring through the earth. And this is really hard 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:37.800 packed dry dirt too. It's not easy stuff to chew through. 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:42.000 No, they make easier work out of it when things 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:45.440 are a little wetter, but generally this dirt is fairly dry, 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:48.360 like you said, so it's pretty tough. And we mentioned 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:50.959 that they're a hairless. They do have some tiny, tiny 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:53.000 little hairs here and there. They have some sensory hairs 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:55.760 on their faces and tails, and a little bit of 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:58.600 hair between their toes, so they can sweep away that 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:01.360 dirt like you were talking about. But if you look 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:03.240 at a naked mole rat. I mean, the first thing 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:05.920 that you're gonna say is that things naked, and look 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:08.480 at those teeth, and I imagine a large one would 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:11.040 be terrifying because they're pretty small, like we said, just 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:11.640 a few inches. 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:15.240 Yes, did you watch the Smithsonian Naked mole Rat. 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:20.000 Camsh No, but there's so much of that in fast, 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:22.560 cheap and out of control. Okay, it's amazing. 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:23.080 I hadn't. 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:25.920 I had not seen them before, and they are really cute. 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:29.720 They're so studious and so serious about the digging around 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:31.079 and moving around. 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:32.200 That they're doing very hard. 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:34.680 Pushing this thing over there, and they just they're super 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:39.000 cute when you watch them. Apparently they're not very aggressive. 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:42.800 There's only specific instances where they show aggression, but for 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:45.640 the most part, they're pretty peaceful, even though to us 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:49.959 they would seem pretty rude because they climb over one another, 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:54.520 in part because they are very closely related, so you 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:57.760 know they're fine with that, but also because their habitats 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:01.240 are enormous, but they still live on top of each other. 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:04.880 Like a naked mole rat. Tunnel system can be comprised 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:09.199 of miles of tunnel that's spread out over like five 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:13.600 acres of land, and yet when they're when they live together, 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:18.040 they live in a really tight, close knit community that 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:20.560 they literally crawl on top of each other. 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:24.520 Yeah, they crawl all over each other like it's nothing 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:27.440 like they're crawling over like a rock or something. And 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:30.560 they are just as good at going backwards as forwards. 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:33.240 And when we say that, like we mean it. They 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:37.320 they've they've done little races and they found that naked 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:40.400 mole rats can go backwards just as fast as they 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:43.840 can go forwards and are just as coordinated, which isn't 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:46.680 super coordinated, but we're talking naked mole rats here. That's 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:47.680 in a smallish tunnel. 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:50.800 Well, I'm pretty stimulated, Chuck. Do you want to take 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:51.240 a break. 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:53.840 Yeah, let's take a break. Since you're stimulated. 0:14:53.960 --> 0:15:02.280 I got a d stem stuff. 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:13.320 You should know, the stuff you should I should know. 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:30.080 I'm pretty distimmed. 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:32.040 I'm feeling all right now you're feeling good. 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:34.640 Yeah, but I'm gonna get stimulated again, Chuck, because there's 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:37.040 so much more, Like we haven't even really tapped into 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:39.680 the most amazing stuff about naked mole rats, Like oh, 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:42.400 this is still this is neat, this is interesting, but 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:44.680 just wait, everybody just you. 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:46.880 Wait, should we talk about respiration? 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:48.280 I think we should. 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:52.000 Well, here's the deal. They are underground in these very 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:55.880 tight spaces and down there because there are so many 0:15:56.160 --> 0:15:57.960 naked mole rats. I don't think we said, but they 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:01.080 live in colonies, and we'll get to the social structure 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:04.720 because it's very very interesting among mammals for sure, and 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:08.400 especially among rodents. But you know, seventy to two hundred 0:16:08.440 --> 0:16:11.600 to three hundred naked mole rats living together in these 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:14.280 tightish quarters even though it's spread out. You know, they're 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:17.720 small tunnels because they're small animals and there's not a 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:21.200 lot of oxygen down there. They can get by on 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:24.600 a startlingly low amount of oxygen. 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.840 Yeah, in an environment that's also high in carbon dioxide. 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:31.360 Like you or I would suffocate to death in a 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:33.600 naked mole rat tunnel system. 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:36.200 Any animal would, I think, yeah, pretty much. 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:40.040 And the reason why is because they've become adapted to 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:43.960 that kind of environment, a low oxygen, high carbon dioxide environment. 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:49.440 And the way that they've adapted is they have they 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:53.600 have evolved a system that, aside from naked mole rats, 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:55.680 has only been found in plants. 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:59.240 That's right, So oh, I don't keep going. 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:02.720 So the toast pump. We all have fructose pumps, but 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:05.720 ours are all in our guts. The naked mole rats 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:09.040 have a fructose pump that uses a metabolic pathway that 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:12.480 takes fructose to be burned for energy in their brains. 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:15.280 And the reason fructose is so important is because it 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:19.119 can be burned anaerobically. You don't need oxygen to power 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:24.240 that system of energy creation or unlocking energy. I guess 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:27.240 from the fruit toase you can just do it without oxygen. 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:30.800 So they lower their metabolism enough that they don't need 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:33.520 much much oxygen. They can get by on the burning 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:36.119 fruit toase until there's more oxygen available. Again. 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:39.720 Yeah, it can live in an atmosphere that is twenty 0:17:39.760 --> 0:17:43.560 percent oxygen and eighty percent CO two, and they've been 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:47.199 able to survive for at least five hours with as 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:49.640 little as five percent oxygen. Five percent. 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:52.159 Yeah, you couldn't do that. I think twenty percent is 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:56.720 like the andes. Five percent is not much at all. No, 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:01.440 So there's another thing I said that they were generally peaceful. 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:05.880 They're generally peaceful within the colony. Apparently there's a behavior 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:08.960 that queens have where they show up and just start 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:11.520 shoving workers around. Did you see that? 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:14.480 Yeah? And they're not quite sure aggressive at times. 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:17.160 Yeah, but it's mostly just the queen and she's mostly 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:20.240 shoving workers. They thought maybe they were it was because 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:23.280 they were being lazy, but the worker is much more 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:26.760 likely to be shoved while they're working, which just seems obnoxious. 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:29.880 Maybe it's just a little reminder. Yeah, yeah, maybe. 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:34.400 But other than that, they aren't very aggressive unless you're 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:37.720 a naked molerat from another colony. And from what I saw, 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:40.560 if you stumble into a naked morat colony and you're 0:18:40.720 --> 0:18:42.760 an outsider, they will kill you. 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:47.000 Yeah, it's not pretty. If you're a predator as well, 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:51.320 they will band together and stack on one another and 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:55.760 reveal those teeth if a centipede or a snake or 0:18:55.800 --> 0:19:00.600 something comes down there. And U yeah, and like you said, 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:03.879 if you're not a member of the family, and I 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:06.080 guess we should go ahead and say it like they're 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:07.840 all the same family, right. Isn't there a lot of 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:08.600 insects going on? 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:13.600 Yeah, let's talk about their incests, shall we. Sure, so 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:17.800 they inbreed. The reason why is because they have one 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:23.480 queen that's just part of their hierarchy, their social structure, 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:28.560 and the Queen has a very limited number of people 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:31.560 the breed with. She basically says you, you, and you 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:35.680 you're my breeding males. Everybody else not only like, don't 0:19:35.680 --> 0:19:41.080 breed with the queen. Somehow, mysteriously, the Queen keeps worker 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:46.720 males and worker females from even like maturing sexually. Yes, 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:49.399 they have no idea how this is happening. Because if 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:52.080 you take a non breeding worker male in a non 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:56.080 breeding worker female out of their colony, within days they 0:19:56.119 --> 0:20:00.920 develop like adult mature reproductive systems and can reproduce. Yeah, 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:01.639 like something going on. 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:06.200 A male literally will they have tiny kind of buried testicles, 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:08.960 But five days after they're out of that hole, those 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:10.480 testicles literally grow. 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:13.680 Yeah, you should see that on fast motion. It's really funny. 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:17.360 Please tell me that's not existent. 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:20.119 Oh but there's a gift out there somewhere. Yeah, okay, 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:21.880 I haven't seen it though. 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:28.600 Yeah, but it's it's weird. It's the suppression of reproduce ability, 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:32.000 and it's it's the Queen. It's just the Queen and 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:35.120 all the other males have their hands up. And only 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:37.159 if you get to go in there and take care 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:37.639 of business. 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:41.600 Yeah, so very frequently they're her own offspring. That's just 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:44.359 how it goes. For a couple of reasons. One, she 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:48.480 makes so many she has so many litters over her lifetime. 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:53.320 And then also they are there. They are very long lived. 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:56.159 I think in captivity they live up to thirty years 0:20:56.240 --> 0:20:56.640 so far. 0:20:56.760 --> 0:20:58.679 I saw longer too. I saw one that was like 0:20:58.880 --> 0:20:59.679 close to forty. 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:03.199 So we've only been studying them in captivity for about 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:08.120 forty ish years, maybe fifty, so we don't really know 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:11.520 what they're actual Like the upper limit of their lifespan is. 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:15.159 We'll talk about that later. But a mouse, if it's lucky, 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:19.359 lives five years in captivity. These guys are living thirty 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:21.480 forty years, right, that's old. 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:26.800 Yeah, I saw the Queen's not in captivity. Can it's 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:30.280 usually like eighteen to twenty years okay, underground, which is 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:30.920 still remarkable. 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:34.560 Yeah, that's super remarkable. So during that time, because she's 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:38.119 creating so many letters and there's outsiders who come to 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:42.159 the colony get killed, she has to. It's inevitable she's 0:21:42.840 --> 0:21:47.160 reproducing with her own kin. And so they found genetically, Chuck, 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:54.160 that the average genetic similarity between just any two members 0:21:54.200 --> 0:21:58.280 of a colony is about point five in human terms. 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:01.800 Point five is what and their offspring has. These are 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:05.640