The star-nosed mole holds the record for the fastest-eating mammal on Earth. What lets it identify and eat prey in a fraction of a second?
- Whiskers that vibrate at ultrasonic frequencies to map nearby prey
- Infrared-sensing pits similar to those of pit-viper snakes
- An extremely acute sense of smell delivered through two nostrils
- Twenty-two fleshy, tentacle-like appendages covered in touch receptors called Eimer's organs
Why D? And why not the others?
Correct answer: D. Twenty-two fleshy, tentacle-like appendages covered in touch receptors called Eimer's organs
The star-nosed mole's nose is ringed by 22 small, constantly moving appendages packed with more than 25,000 touch receptors called Eimer's organs, feeding an enormous stream of tactile information to an outsized region of its brain; the mole can touch several potential prey items per second, decide whether each is edible, and eat it in as little as 120 milliseconds. No known mole has ultrasonic-vibrating whiskers; that description matches no documented mammalian sensory system. Infrared-sensing pits belong to pit vipers and some boas for detecting warm-blooded prey, an entirely different sensory adaptation unrelated to touch-based hunting. Smell plays little role in this mole's speed, since it hunts underground and even underwater, where it exhales and re-inhales small air bubbles to sniff — but its record-breaking speed comes from touch, not scent.
Source: Vanderbilt University (Catania lab): star-nosed mole Eimer's organs and fastest-eating mammal research, published in Nature.