The star-nosed mole, a hamster-sized inhabitant of North American wetlands, is nearly blind. But what it lacks in vision, it more than makes up for in feeling, so to speak.
What's so special about the star-nosed mole's nose?
Its nose is used more as a super-sensitive spare paw with 22 toes. The pea-sized organ is extremely perceptive, packed with over 25,000 sensory receptors – compared with 17,000 in the human hand. The mole can identify anything it touches seven times faster than a person can blink. This makes it the most sensitive organ in the animal world.
All of this means the mole’s star nose is a formidable hunting tool. The animal sweeps it back and forth along the ground like a metal detector, looking for worms and other treasures.
It scans so quickly, and its feelers are so responsive, that the whole process – from detecting to devouring prey – takes just one-fifth of a second, making the mole the fastest-foraging mammal in the world.
But the animal has another trick up its trunk. The mole can track the scent of prey underwater, like an aquatic bloodhound. To do this it blows a bubble out of each nostril. Odour molecules cross from the water into the air pocket, which the mole then sucks back in for a whiff. In this way, it sniffs out dinner in a pond as efficiently as a mouse or rat does on land.
Oh, the sweet smell of evolutionary success.
We named it one of the weirdest and strangest animals in the world
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