Joy in Schönbrunn
Wrinkled and almost blind: offspring of naked mole rats
Pretty, cute, sweet? That is of course debatable when it comes to naked mole rats. However, there is a success story to report from Schönbrunn. For the first time in almost eight years, there have now been offspring again. Four little naked mole rats are romping around the desert house.
Kronen Zeitung als bevorzugte Google-Quelle hinzufügen The little ones are now eight weeks old and measure around seven centimeters. They were suckled for about a month. In the meantime, they are already eating tubers and root vegetables with their well-developed incisors.
Only the queen provides offspring
"The decisive factor for our breeding success was a stable social structure. The social system of naked mole-rats is similar to that of honeybees: In a colony, only the queen provides offspring. She is the only fertile female and suppresses the reproduction of all other females in the colony," says zoo director Dr. Stephan Hering-Hagenbeck. If the queen dies, however, any other female can compete for her role and reproduce, unlike in honeybees.
Focus on naked mole rats in cancer research
The East African rodents spend their lives in underground tunnel systems and are almost blind. "The air in their tunnels has a high carbon dioxide content. Naked mole rats can cope with very high CO2 concentrations, which can even be fatal for other mammals. Most rodents live a maximum of three to four years, while naked mole rats can live up to 30 years. These are some of the reasons why these animals are incredibly fascinating," says Anton Weissenbacher, zoological curator at Schönbrunn Zoo. Naked mole rats are also the focus of cancer research. The wrinkled animals practically never develop cancer.
Visitors can experience the breeding success in the desert house at the gates of the zoo up close. The young naked mole rats can be observed together with the rest of the colony through a 70-metre-long labyrinth of glass tubes. Since summer 2024, admission to the desert house has been included in the zoo's annual pass.
This article has been automatically translated,
read the original article here.
Da dieser Artikel älter als 18 Monate ist, ist zum jetzigen Zeitpunkt kein Kommentieren mehr möglich.
Wir laden Sie ein, bei einer aktuelleren themenrelevanten Story mitzudiskutieren: Themenübersicht.
Bei Fragen können Sie sich gern an das Community-Team per Mail an forum@krone.at wenden.