TOP FIVE WEIRD THINGS ABOUT THE NAKED MOLE-RAT (Heterocephalus glaber) THAT WILL MAKE YOUR JAW DROP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_mole-rat
Thermoconformer *The naked mole-rat does not regulate its body temperature in typical mammalian fashion. They are thermoconformers rather than thermoregulators in that, unlike other mammals, body temperature tracks ambient temperatures. The relationship between oxygen consumption and ambient temperature switches from a typical poikilothermic pattern to a homeothermic mode when temperature is at 28 °C or higher. At lower temperatures naked mole-rats can use behavioral thermoregulation. For example, cold naked mole-rats huddle together or seek shallow parts of the burrows that are warmed by the sun. Conversely, when they get too hot, naked mole-rats retreat to the deeper, cooler parts of the burrows.
Oxygen efficient *The naked mole-rat is well adapted for the limited availability of oxygen within the tunnels of its typical habitat; its lungs are very small and its blood has a very strong affinity for oxygen, increasing the efficiency of oxygen uptake. It has a very low respiration and metabolic rate for an animal of its size, about 2/3 that of a similarly sized mouse, thus using oxygen minimally. In response to long periods of hunger, its metabolic rate can be reduced by up to 25 percent.
They don’t feel pain *The skin of naked mole-rats lacks a key neurotransmitter called substance P that is responsible in mammals for sending pain signals to the central nervous system. As a result, the naked mole-rats feel no pain, even when they are exposed to acid or capsaicin. When they are injected with substance P, however, the pain signaling works as it does in other mammals, but only with capsaicin and not with acids. This is proposed to be an adaptation to the animal living in high levels of carbon dioxide due to poorly ventilated living spaces, which would cause acid to build up in their body tissues. Naked mole-rats’ substance P deficiency has also been tied to their lack of the histamine-induced itching and scratching behavior typical of rodents.
They hardly ever get cancer *Naked mole-rats have a high resistance to tumours, although it is likely that they are not entirely immune to related disorders. A potential mechanism that averts cancer is an “over-crowding” gene, p16, which prevents cell division once individual cells come into contact (known as “contact inhibition”). The cells of most mammals, including naked mole-rats, undergo contact inhibition via the gene p27 which prevents cellular reproduction at a much higher cell density than p16 does. The combination of p16 and p27 in naked mole-rat cells is a double barrier to uncontrolled cell proliferation, one of the hallmarks of cancer. In 2013, scientists reported that the reason naked mole-rats do not get cancer may be because they produce an “extremely high-molecular-mass hyaluronan” (HMW-HA) (a natural sugary substance), which is over “five times larger” than that in cancer-prone humans and cancer-susceptible laboratory animals.
They live a really long time (for a rodent) *The naked mole-rat is also of interest because it is extraordinarily long-lived for a rodent of its size (up to 31 years) and holds the record for the longest living rodent.