The animal kingdom is made up of millions of species, many of which seem very unusual and may make people wonder how, or why, the animal evolved the way it did.
Within the animal kingdom, most people would agree that marsupials are among the oddest of the bunch. Some examples of marsupials are kangaroos, koalas, wombats, bandicoots, bilbys, sugar gliders, and many others.
If you’re looking for one of the weirdest animals within this lineup of very odd creatures, you may want to look at the southern marsupial mole, though you’ve almost certainly never seen one in person.
These unusual moles live largely underground and are located in Australia. A team of researchers recently extracted the DNA from one of the moles and sequenced it to learn what they could.
While there was never any doubt that this was one odd animal, what they learned revealed hidden layers of weirdness. The study was published in Science Advances.
Some of the many things that the researchers found include:
- Hidden Non-Functioning Eyes – Moles are often blind, but these moles once had sight, but through evolution, they lost the ability to see and now their non-functioning eyes are hidden beneath their skin.
- Backward-Facing Pouch – The females have a pouch like all marsupials, but their pouch faces backward. This is likely to help prevent dirt and other contaminants from entering the pouch while mom digs.
- Missing a Scrotum – The males are one of the very few mammals not to have a scrotum, though they once did. It can be theorized that these modern moles evolved so their testicles never dropped so that they would not get damaged, or even ripped off while digging through their tight tunnels underground.
- Extra Hemoglobin – The Australian mole has an extra copy of one of the hemoglobin genes, which allows their blood to carry more oxygen than most animals. This is important when living underground where oxygen is scarce, and even more essential for the babies living in mom’s pouch where oxygen levels dip even further.
Unfortunately, they also found that the genetic diversity within this species is in decline. It seems that it has been dipping since around the start of the last glacial period some 70,000 years ago, so at least this time it is not the fault of humans.
In an article on the study, the researchers do comment that even if this genetic decline is not the fault of humans, we should still work on protecting this interesting animal:
“Genetic diversity is vital for a species’ health and its ability to adapt in a changing world. Our work shows that just because the marsupial mole is often out of sight, it shouldn’t stay out of mind.”
Everyone should fully support protecting these amazing creatures.
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