Mole Rats Get Stressed When Earth's Magnetic Field Vanishes, Study Suggests

The amazing animal known as Ansell's mole rat (Fukomys anselli) is one of evolution's most interesting offerings: half fuzzy sausage and half Nemesis from Resident Evil. This social, chonky creature 'sees' magnetic fields with its near-blind eyes to navigate its hand-dug, kilometers-long subterranean tunnels; the longest built by any mammal, save ourselves. Now, unique new research shows that this mole rat is so magnetically attuned that it shows signs of stress when Earth's guiding magnetic field nearly disappears – as any disaster movie connoisseur can understand. The animal's amazing magnetosensation is still poorly understood, so a team led by neurobiologists from the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology of Behavior used a new method to map the mole rats' brains to see how their neurons responded to magnetic field fluctuations. Ansell's mole rat appears to sense magnetic fields with its near-blind eyes.