Naked mole rats choose a queen the same way bees do!
I find animal/insect communities so fascinating. I’m by no means an expert when it comes to different species, but love having a fun fact or two to pull out at a party.
Naked mole rats are eusocial just as bees are which is not common for mammals. In eusocial communities, one female breeds majority of the workers. I first became interested in this when a colony of these blind rodents were choosing their queen at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington DC. It was a drawn out process that my co-workers and I checked in on each day while I pretended to work at my winter break job. Feel free to read all about it in the Smithsonian article linked above.
After my daily check to see if she had been chosen, I would spend a few minutes watching the livestream of the naked mole rats living at the zoo. The zoo also livestreams the lions, giant pandas and elephants if you’re interested.
(There are oddly zero pictures of naked mole rats on Unsplash.)
Happy watching!
