I am – Animal of the Day: "star-nosed mole"

20 years ago

I am proud to bring you another installment of our animal series. I have been a big fan of animals ever since my aunt Bella bought me a rabbit which died of a cold after 5 weeks. I never cried as hard as I did that day. Not even the day I found out the Stepfather was broke and couldn’t pay my bill. Can you believe this fucked up looking thing is actually on earth and not something out of a movie. These freaky-looking creatures can detect food and eat it in under a quarter of a second.

“Most predators take times ranging from minutes to seconds to handle their prey,” said Ken Catania of Vanderbilt University. “The only things I’ve found that come even close are some species of fish.”

Via Gorilla

More after the Jump

The secret to the mole’s impressive foraging ability is the 22 appendages that ring its nose. Nearly blind, the animal uses this sensitive, star-shaped flesh to feel around in its dark, underground environment.

To clock how fast a mole can identify an object as edible and gobble it down, Catania and Fiona Remple captured the feeding behavior with a high-speed video camera. Some of this amazing footage can be seen here.

The scientists speculate that the mole eats so fast because it has to consume so much more of its small prey – insect larvae and tiny worms – to make this diet energetically profitable.

The star-nosed mole’s habitat ranges from Canada to Georgia, but because they live only in marshes and wetlands, people rarely catch a glimpse of them. This sounds like a good thing.