Mole rat: in 10 times more destructive than a mole (13 photos)

If he came to the plot, the garden will be destroyed.





Hi! I came to say that you have a cool plot. True, now it's mine! Bye!

First, let's just decide who's who. Many people are guided by simple stereotypes like "if it's black and croaks, it's a crow, if it's woolly and lives underground, it's a mole." But moles are not moles or even their distant relatives. They are closer to mice and hamsters, if it is important to establish genealogy.



When you have already been told 10 times, but you still did not hear.

There are 8 species of mole rats. But for a non-specialist in rodents, it is almost impossible to distinguish Bib from Boba and the sand mole rat from the common mole rat by some external characteristics. All diggers and prospectors are blind, gray-brown and not very friendly. You can meet them in the south and west of our country. And also in Europe and Kazakhstan.





Stop yelling at me!

Unlike moles, moles don't have a cute little pink button nose at the front end of their bodies, but huge teeth. And the digger weighs five times more - an adult animal gains almost a kilogram in weight.



A mole compared to a cat. Yes, it's the size of a small rabbit.



And this is a mole. Compared to a mole, it's really a baby!

On the surface, the little animal looks very pitiful. The poor thing runs in circles, trying to hide as quickly as possible. But, alas, it can't see where to hide, and it can't hear where the threat is coming from - mole rats have very poorly developed eyes and ears. The rodent is guided by smell, touch and vibrations around it. It's like taking an IT specialist to a large shopping center and leaving him alone in the middle of a crowd.



Oh no, sunbeams! Take me back to my gaming chair!

Therefore, as soon as the mole rat calms down, it will begin to gnaw the ground vigorously. This is not a figure of speech. Yes, most burrowing animals make passages with their paws. But mole rats dig with their mouths - those same giant incisors. Where do they put the earth then? As usual, they throw it back and push it to the surface. The soil does not get into the mouth itself - the lips of the diggers close behind long protruding incisors.



The mole rat took the expression "to roll up the lip" too literally.

The mole rats work on an industrial scale - by rodent standards, of course. From one underground passage, a prospector can dig up to 10 kilograms of earth - 10 times more than the worker himself weighs! But the mole rats do not stop there. In order to comfortably settle underground, they dig a complex and long system of tunnels and nesting chambers. It is almost like our metro, only for permanent residence. There are about 500 meters of underground passages for one mole rat!



When I realized that the Earth is hollow, and the conspiracy theorists were right...

The animal has a network of "feeding" tunnels in which it looks for food. They lie close to the surface - at a depth of 25-30 centimeters. The mole rat sniffs out our summer cottage plantings. Have you seen how in cartoons plants disappear right from the garden bed, as if something is sucking them in? Well, it is not "something" that does this, but a very specific "someone" - the mole rat. Mole rats create such large-scale destruction that not a single mole could dream of it!



After the mole's work, these piles of earth remain.

The animal digs a hole and drags the plant inside, then eats the greenery and hides the root for later. Rodents like plants with nutritious underground parts the most - potatoes, carrots, beets, even tulip bulbs can be dragged away. The mole puts all its honestly (and not so honestly) acquired goods in underground nests-storage rooms, which are located at a depth of 2-3 meters. In good harvest years, the rodent collects more than 10 kilograms of provisions!



Everything that fits in your mouth is useful!

The animal spends the winter there, next to its supplies. It does not hibernate, instead, the rodents warm each other with their love! In winter, the rodents mate, give birth in the spring, and in the fall they drive the children out of the house. One brood contains from 2 to 6 babies, but the female will not tolerate any of them on her site.



This little guy hasn't grown cheeks yet and you can even see his eyes!

If you've read carefully, you now understand why it's so hard to get rid of a mole rat on your property and what harm it can do. Pouring water into the hole is absolutely useless, because several tanks of water would be needed to flood the giant underground tunnel network. Letting cats and dogs in won't help either, because in the wild, only a ferret or an experienced fox can catch a mole rat, which will wait for a long time near the entrance to the hole. Trying to dig the animal out is also not worth it, because then it's easier to hire an excavator and say goodbye to the garden.



The only photo where the mole rat doesn't scream at us from the screen. Here he even looks cute!

They say that humane ultrasonic repellers and inhumane traps work well against pests. But in any case, don't try to catch the beast with your bare hands. He gnaws the ground, and he certainly won't spare your fingers!



Your finger could have been here!