Summary
Naked mole-rats are colonial rodents that live in subterranean burrows. The colony consists of one mating queen who has up to five litter a year, that average about ten pups, the only female that breeds while the other females are sexually repressed, one to three breeding males, while the work and defense of the colony is divided among the subordinate members of the colony, many of whom will never breed. Competition to become the queen can be violent and deadly, because once the queen is established she can monopolize breeding, and usually remains the queen for an extended period of time. Naked mole-rats very rarely outbreed and as a result have become very inbred. Instead of new colonies being formed, new colonies are established through the fission of one colony into two. As a result of the high relatedness caused by this inbreeding naked mole-rats display several cooperative behaviors, including sacrificing themselves to protect the colony from predators. Due to their highly cooperative existence and mating structure they have been classified by Jarvis (1981) as eusocial and with social existences most comparable to some species of insects, including ants, wasps, and bees.
This web site was completed in partial fulfillment of the requiremtns for Biology 323, Animal Behavior at Davidson College in the Spring Semester of 2003.