Moles Animal Eyesight
The elusive mole is one of the most interesting little critters to be found in the garden, with their funny spade-like paws, their tiny eyes and their lack of external ears… but, unfortunately, they’re also one of the most destructive and there’s nothing worse than looking at your once perfectly manicured lawn to see it bumped up with pesky mole hills.
And, of course, if you need any help at all with mole pest control at any point, you can always get in touch with us and we can come out and lend a hand in the garden.
The American star-nosed mole is rather a strange-looking little beast but its star-shaped proboscis works to feel out prey as it moves around, bobbing it against the soil as fast as it can, touching ten to 12 different locations in just one second. And it can eat a worm or insect in a truly impressive quarter of a second !
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It’s a common misconception that moles are all blind or that they don’t even have eyes at all, but this isn’t true. Yes, their eyesight isn’t great and some moles may have skin that covers their eyes, but research has shown that they may see better than previously thought , able to see light even when their eyes are permanently closed.
Moles are omnivores and they’ll munch on vegetable matter, grubs and insects, but they love nothing more than munching away on earthworms. Apparently, they even prepare the worms for the dinner table by squeezing them along their bodies to get rid of any dirt in the gut and any lingering debris on their skin.
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Naked Mole Rat
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Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.But in findings that could give new insights to human eye disorders, scientists reveal that moles’ eyes are better than expected and that they can see light even when their eyes are permanently shut.
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The researchers have also discovered that moles’ eyes play a crucial role in controlling their body clocks which let the underground mammals know the time of day and time of year.
Dr Martin Collinson from the University of Aberdeen is among the international team whose findings are published today (Wednesday, December 9) in the Royal Society journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Dr Collinson, Reader in Biomedical Sciences, said: “Moles live in the dark, and in the case of the Iberian mole their eyes are covered by skin, so the assumption was that they were blind.
Stars For Eyes
“It has also been assumed that animals that live in the dark will gradually lose their eyes through evolution, like cavefish which have no functional eyes.
“However we found that they have fully developed retinas that have all the right cell types for detecting light and which also make all the right connections with their brains.
“We also discovered that the structure of the light receptive cells in their retinas is typical of animals who live in daylight and those that we humans have.”
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The research – a three year project which is part of a 25 year study of moles in Granada – looked at Iberian and European moles.
Dr Collinson, based at the University’s Institute of Medical Sciences, said: “In the case of the Iberian mole we found that even though their eyes are permanently shut, they can see and run away from bright light, which we assume means they use their eyes to detect holes in the roof of their tunnel networks.
“We also we found that moles have masses of a specialised type of retinal cell that is needed to control circadian rhythms or body clocks.
Mole Animal Images, Stock Photos, 3d Objects, & Vectors
“We should have listened to the country folk, because as any mole catcher knows, moles get up in the morning, have a nap in the middle of the day and then get active again in the evening before bed.
“What we have now discovered is the molecular machinery that enables moles to do that. Our research also shows that moles are not on an evolutionary pathway to complete eye loss.”
Researchers now hope their work could yield new clues to understanding more about human eye disorders and the use of stem cells to repair damaged retinas.
Moles And Mole Management
Dr Collinson added: “The eye is a battleground for anti-evolutionary argument, because it is difficult to understand how it can evolve in incremental stages if a partially formed eye is no use.
“Our work has shown that in fact a partially formed eye can be very important for the ecology and survival of the animal, and that there is nothing inherently impossible about the evolution of the eye.
“It also highlights the fact that among the animal kingdom there are thousands of species that have not been studied but which may hold important clues for our understanding of human pathology.
Lesser Blind Mole Rat
“For example there is a type of stem cell in our retinas called the Müller glia that could hold the key to repairing retinas after disease or injury that lead to blindness. Although these stem cells are asleep and virtually inactive in humans, in moles they are awake and reactivated. If we could work out how moles do that, we would hold a key to human retinal repair. ”
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