{"id":271018,"date":"2026-02-06T17:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T17:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/271018\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T17:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T17:57:09","slug":"it-stretches-up-to-2-5-miles-is-2-5-metres-deep-and-is-home-to-300-of-the-weirdest-most-rule-breaking-animals-on-the-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/271018\/","title":{"rendered":"It stretches up to 2.5 miles, is 2.5 metres deep and is home to 300 of the weirdest, most rule-breaking animals on the planet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/mammals\/naked-mole-rat-facts\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Naked mole rats<\/a> are possibly one of the most bizarre animals on the planet. They are the world\u2019s only <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/thermoregulation-whats-the-difference-between-cold-blooded-and-warm-blooded-animals\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ectothermic<\/a> mammals and can survive 18 minutes without oxygen.<\/p>\n<p>Also unusual for mammals is that they are eusocial, which means they live in large colonies where only one female breeds and the other mole rats work for the colony.<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t without consequences, as they <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/the-naked-mole-rats-superpower-heres-what-it-reveals-about-living-longer\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">live so long<\/a> there is a risk of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/incestuous-animals\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">interbreeding<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Naked mole rats are native to the\u00a0Horn of Africa\u00a0and parts of\u00a0Kenya, where they live underground in huge interconnected tunnel systems \u2013 with some parts 2.5 metres (6.5 feet) deep. Made up of nest chambers, toilet areas and food sources, these vast networks can stretch up to 2.5 miles (4 kilometres).<\/p>\n<p>A typical colony contains around 70 mole rats, although <a href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC10973426\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">numbers can reach up to 300<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This shouldn\u2019t come as a surpise, as the naked mole rat is an incredibly prolific breeder: the queen can produce up to five litters each year, containing an average of 12 pups (although the maximum is around 30). <\/p>\n<p>Top image: a naked mole-rat queen suckling pups. Credit: Getty<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Naked mole rats are possibly one of the most bizarre animals on the planet. They are the world\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":{"0":"post-271018","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}