Science, Bitches | Issue 21

Science, Bitches | Issue 21

The naked mole rat

So why would I bother talking about the naked mole rat – a pink, hairless, toothed rodent from eastern Africa? Perhaps you better know them as the species that charismatic sidekick from your child/teenhood was (Kim Possible, anyone?). Have you ever Google image searched for a naked mole rat? If not, save it for a minute when you need a laugh. National Geographic describes these animals as “bratwursts with teeth.” How’s that for a mental image?

Let’s look beyond the phallic appearance of these wrinkly, toothed creatures and see what else goes on in their burrows.

What do naked mole rats and bees have in common? Unlike all other mammals, the naked mole rat lives eusocially, meaning they live in a colony and collectively. They behave not unlike a hive of bees or a nest of ants (though I think you will find that the naked mole rat does not produce honey). They spend a majority of their lives underground, in massive burrows of interconnecting tunnels that can be a few kilometres in size! The naked mole rat has a queen, who suppresses the sexual activity of the females around her. Only a few males are sexually capable, while all the other males and females are simply subordinates. These subordinates will be soldiers, workers and babysitters for the queen and her pups. This is fascinating, as this is behaviour usually reserved for insects, certainly not mammals. They have tiny little legs, not so good for burrowing. Instead they use their massive rodent teeth to carve away at the earth.

The social life of bees is fairly similar – the queen bee does all the reproducing, while the others tend to the hives and look after the young. The queen bee keeps the others in line using pheromones – scented chemicals that affect the behaviour of the bees around her. The naked mole rat queen, on the other hand, must bully those around her to keep them in line. She needs to be able to fight off any females who try to take her place. Another weird fact about the naked mole rat: they can move their front teeth independently, like a pair of chopsticks!

Why else should we care about these half-blind, wrinkled, stumpy-legged and, frankly, ugly rodents? They have very long lifespans for rodents and they are resistant to cancer. How does that work? The body usually does its best to stave off cancers through a mechanism called contact inhibition. This means that cells physically contacting one another inhibit their neighbours from growing and dividing when they’re not supposed to. Cancers arise when this inhibition is faulty, along with other genetic changes to the cells. Naked mole rats have more proteins that can maintain this contact inhibition than humans do, making them highly resistant to cancers. You can now probably see why these phallic animals fascinate scientists. And that’s science, bitches!
This article first appeared in Issue 21, 2014.
Posted 5:55pm Sunday 31st August 2014 by Hannah Twigg.