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School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences

Chris Faulkes talks about “ the sabre-toothed sausage'’

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BBC News talks to Chris Faulkes about naked mole rats which he has spent the past 20 years studying. Chris describes them as looking “a bit like a sabre-toothed sausage”. The creatures have huge teeth, belong to the African mole rat family and are usually found living in large underground burrows. Their behaviour is as abnormal as their appearance because they live in huge groups of up to 300. Chris continues, “In these really huge colonies, there is only a single female that breeds, and she mates with one or two, or sometimes three, breeding males. The rest of the colony, of both sexes, have their reproduction suppressed and never ever breed.”

 

 

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