Yikes! It’s Fast Too!

Do not adjust your monitor.  This is an actual animal.  It lives on our planet.

With a mug like that, the star-nosed mole might seem to be in danger of scaring away all its food.  Luckily, these bizarre-looking creatures can detect a snack and gulp it down all under a quarter of a second. 

"Most predators take times ranging from minutes to seconds to handle their prey," said Ken Catania of Vanderbilt University. "The only things I've found that come even close are some species of fish."

The secret to the mole's impressive foraging ability is the 22 appendages that ring its nose.  Nearly blind, the animal uses this sensitive, star-shaped flesh to feel around in its dark, underground environment.

To clock how fast a mole can identify an object as edible and gobble it down, Catania and Fiona Remple captured the feeding behavior with a high-speed video camera.  Some of this amazing footage can be seen here. 

The scientists speculate that the mole eats so fast because it has to consume so much more of its small prey - insect larvae and tiny worms - to make this diet energetically profitable. 

The star-nosed mole's habitat ranges from Canada to Georgia, but because they live only in marshes and wetlands, people rarely catch a glimpse of them.  This sounds like a good thing.

The study was published in last week's issue of the journal Nature.

-- Michael Schirber

Credit: Ken Catania