Friday, March 29, 2013

R. I. P. Mole


Don't worry, I didn't kill the mole nor do plan on eating it!  Over the past days I've been noticing mole tunnels.  I guess the wet weather and wet soil must make ideal tunneling conditions.  Thinking about moles when I step on their tunnels made me remember these cool dead mole photos that Brandon took for me last year while he was taking a walk.   He's such a good husband. 


Look at the mitts on this guy!  Moles are supposed to have a second thumb, which is really a wrist bone that has evolved to stick up near the thumb and makes the front paws very wide and good for digging.  Apparently they squeeze earthworms between their front paws before eating them to squeeze out all the mud the worms have been eating.  The poor worms have the poo squeezed out them in their last moments.  If I were a worm, and I was captured by a creature this ugly, squeezing wouldn't be necessary.  



You can't see it's eyes at all, but I thought it was cool that in the photos you can still see mud stuck to the fur around it's nose.  The tunnels that you can see sticking up near the surface function as worm traps.  Somehow they can detect the worms falling into the tunnel and they run to quickly snatch them up.  They can paralyze the worms with an enzyme in their saliva and store them, alive, by the hundreds to be eaten later.  Who would have though worms face such nightmarish fates at the hands of cute little moles.  It's fascinating, but terrible to consider.  One more reason, to add to my growing list of reasons, that I'm glad I'm not a worm. 

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