Moving to music like rats up drainpipes
A radio has been left on at a Black Country zoo to make the animals more comfortable.
The sound from the radio helps keep mole rats comfortable as the East African creatures are incredibly sensitive to noise.
Senior keeper at Dudley Zoo, Jodie Dryden, said: “Mole rats are blind so their hearing is heightened anyway and they respond to the most sensitive sound vibrations. That’s why the viewing glass on the exhibit is extremely thick and we keep the radio on.
“That way any noise we make when caring for them or if there are lots of visitors nearby there is already something going on in the background.”
Staff at the zoo have to keep the network of clear tubes and chambers, which imitates a natural underground habitat, at a constant tropical temperature of 30 degrees Celsius.
Other duties include checking the burrow temperature, cleaning any dirty chambers with water, a 60g serving of root veg and a quick head count to make sure staff see our two females and three males.
Keepers add undyed tissue to a chamber which the five mole rats skilfully and powerfully tear into strips and transport along the tubes to their nest, taking a variety of routes along the way.
Naked mole rats, despite their name, are neither moles or rats but are more more closely related to porcupines, chinchillas and guinea pigs and have an expected captive lifespan of 30 years.
