Positive effect of a diggable substrate on the behaviour of a captive naked mole rat colony.

ABSTRACT: Naked mole rats (Heterocephalus galber) are eusocial mammals from East Africa. Their extraordinary social organisation is accompanied by remarkable adaptations to an underground lifestyle, extreme longevity and resistance to many diseases, making naked mole rats a highly relevant model for biological research. However, their living conditions in controlled environments do not allow them to express fundamental behaviours: digging galleries and exploring. This gap probably constitutes a bias to any behavioural or even medical study, because it represents a potential obstacle to their well-being. In this article, we tested the effects of the introduction of a diggable substrate on the behaviour of a colony of naked mole rats at the Menagerie, le Zoo du Jardin des Plantes, Paris. We measured i

SUBMITTER: Amari M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11362154 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature