African beasts in Essen/Germany
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
Small they are, not heavier than 600 g.
A strange outer appearance they have, like a Bratwurst with brown or grey fur and two BIG teeth at the front.
15 years ago, they had been taken out of Africa and brought to European soils. Now we have them here in Essen.
Take care of your fingers, but take also care of your heart: these little African beasts can steal it...
University of Essen: the place where cryptomys lives.
What is so special about the Gray's mole rats (Cryptomys, Bathyergidae, Rodentia) is their eusociality: Queen and King rule over a more or less huge family of children and/or sisters and brothers which don't reproduce but take care of the litter. It is weird to see an insect-like behaviour in mammals! They spend most of the day playing with paper, building tunnels or sleeping (!), one lying on the other, no matter if the babies are at the bottom or at the top. For lunch they prefer: carrots, potatoes, batatas, apples, salad (!) (drinks are already included in all this) and some special kind of rodent-food in orange and green which they do actually fight for.
As far as we know, they split up into these species:
-Cryptomys mechowi (the biggest ones) 2n=40
-Cryptomys anselli 2n=68
-Cryptomys kafuensis 2n=58
We are interested in their behaviour, so we don't kill them (dead cryptomys' behaviour usually is quite boring). We try to make their captivity as comfortable as possible for them (as far as we can judge about comfort for rodents), and we hope that they feel well. Their reproductive rate seems to tell us they do.
You can visit our website: www.uni-essen.de/zoologie and have a closer look!
Go on an adventure and get to know a quite unknown animal!
A strange outer appearance they have, like a Bratwurst with brown or grey fur and two BIG teeth at the front.
15 years ago, they had been taken out of Africa and brought to European soils. Now we have them here in Essen.
Take care of your fingers, but take also care of your heart: these little African beasts can steal it...
University of Essen: the place where cryptomys lives.
What is so special about the Gray's mole rats (Cryptomys, Bathyergidae, Rodentia) is their eusociality: Queen and King rule over a more or less huge family of children and/or sisters and brothers which don't reproduce but take care of the litter. It is weird to see an insect-like behaviour in mammals! They spend most of the day playing with paper, building tunnels or sleeping (!), one lying on the other, no matter if the babies are at the bottom or at the top. For lunch they prefer: carrots, potatoes, batatas, apples, salad (!) (drinks are already included in all this) and some special kind of rodent-food in orange and green which they do actually fight for.
As far as we know, they split up into these species:
-Cryptomys mechowi (the biggest ones) 2n=40
-Cryptomys anselli 2n=68
-Cryptomys kafuensis 2n=58
We are interested in their behaviour, so we don't kill them (dead cryptomys' behaviour usually is quite boring). We try to make their captivity as comfortable as possible for them (as far as we can judge about comfort for rodents), and we hope that they feel well. Their reproductive rate seems to tell us they do.
You can visit our website: www.uni-essen.de/zoologie and have a closer look!
Go on an adventure and get to know a quite unknown animal!
