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Star-nosed Mole — printable fact sheet
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Star-nosed Mole
Condylura cristata
The twenty-two fleshy rays around the star-nosed mole's snout are not for smelling and not for digging — they are a touch organ, and the most sensitive one known in any mammal. The star packs on the order of a hundred thousand nerve fibres into an area smaller than a fingertip, …
Did you know?
- The star-nosed mole is the only mole known to smell underwater by exhaling and re-inhaling air bubbles.
- The 22 rays on its snout are a touch organ — the most sensitive known in any mammal — not a nose for smelling. It can decide whether something is edible in about eight milliseconds, the fastest foraging ever measured. It smells underwater by exhaling a bubble of air onto an object and breathing it back in. Nearly blind, it "sees" its tunnels entirely by touch.
What I learned
Draw the star-nosed mole
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