You may know the naked mole rat (Heterocephalus glaber) as the pet of Ron, Kim Possible’s sidekick from the early-2000s cartoon of the same name, but naked mole rats do not make good pets. They live in large underground colonies in semiarid areas of East Africa and would not thrive living alone aboveground.
Naked mole rats have very limited sight and hearing, and although they appear naked due to their lack of visible fur, their bodies are actually covered in tiny hairs that they use to feel out their surroundings.
Their long teeth are specialized for digging tunnels; as they dig, they feed on underground tubers. They also eat their own feces to conserve energy. Not our first choice of snacks (or second, or third), but nature gets that you do what you have to sometimes.
Even weirder? When deprived of oxygen (which can sometimes happen when digging underground tunnels), the naked mole rat can use fructose (the sugar plants use for energy) instead of glucose (the sugar animals use) to power its cells.
