Blind mole-rats | Spalacidae

Blindmuizen | Ratas topo ciegas

Rodents that spend their whole lives underground and are built for it in every part. The body is cylindrical with no perceptible neck, there are no external ears, and the eyes are reduced to a minute remnant under skin grown shut, of use at most for measuring day length. There is no external tail either. Digging is done not with the feet but with the strongly forward-jutting incisors, which work outside the closed lips, and with the broad, flat-fronted head driven through the soil like a wedge; a fringe of stiff bristles along the snout sweeps the loose earth aside, and the short powerful legs push it back. They do not come to the surface: the spoil is forced up into mounds. They live on roots, tubers and bulbs stored in chambers, each animal alone and fierce about its own system, and they make themselves understood by drumming the head against the tunnel roof.