Thick claws help the animal excavate long, twisting tunnels.Īt least once a year, Catania goes into secluded wetlands in northwestern Pennsylvania, where he temporarily captures a few of the moles to study their behavior and neurological systems in his Vanderbilt laboratory. This discovery, which caught the scientist by surprise, provided the first evidence of a mammal being capable of using its olfactory skills while underwater. Through videos, Catania saw that submerged moles can blow between five and 10 air bubbles per second, aiming them at objects such as fish or crustaceans to pick up what he calls “odorant molecules.” The moles suck the bubbles back into their snouts to sniff for the scents of potential prey. What’s more, unlike the 38 other mole species, star-nosed moles can swim-and have the unique ability to smell underwater. “They eat faster than any other mammals on Earth,” Catania says. The animals can identify individual prey in less than two-tenths of a second and then determine in just 8 milliseconds whether or not it is edible. Using video recordings of the animals, he determined that the rays can touch as many as 10 different objects in a single second, writhing like tentacles as the mole searches through mud for insects, worms and other prey. “Star-nosed moles have extremely efficient nervous systems that convey information from the environment to their brains at speeds approaching the physiological limits of neurons,” Catania explains. (By comparison, an entire human hand has about 17,000 nerve endings.) Armed with 100,000 nerve endings crammed into an area roughly the size of a human fingertip, the rays are unique to this species and give it the most sensitive touch organs in the animal kingdom. To survive in that dark environment, the poor-sighted mole relies on the 22 fleshy appendages, called rays, that form the star surrounding its snout. Though the mole is quite common in some areas, few people know it exists because it spends almost all of its two- to three-year life span belowground in muddy burrows and tunnels or swimming to hunt for prey. The sole member of the genus Condylura, the half-foot-long animal ranges in wetlands from southeastern Canada through parts of the eastern United States and as far south as Georgia. Packed with 100,000 nerve endings, fingerlike rays on the nose help the mole find prey at lightning speed.
Function trumps beauty in the star-nosed mole, whose tentacled snout is incomparably sensitive.
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