The Naked Mole-Rat

Naked mole-rats are some of the most fascinating members of the animal kingdom - but just how unique are they? Turns out, they diverged from their nearest relative more than 31 MILLION years ago! Field Museum curator Dr. Bruce Patterson, and Yale postdoctoral researcher Nate Upham have determined they ought to be in their own scientific family. Now, can someone please update their Wikipedia page?

Read more about this discovery on The Field Museum's website: http://www.fieldmuseum.org/science/blog/naked-mole-rats-not-mole-not-rat-and-not-african-mole-rat

Here's the abstract for the paper:
Patterson, B. and Upham, N. "A newly recognized family from the Horn of Africa, the Heterocephalidae (Rodentia: Ctenohystrica)." (abstract) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/zoj.12201/abstract

Shout-out to Jillian at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo for allowing us to get footage of their colony! http://www.lpzoo.org/

HUGE thank-you to Bruce and Nate for their help with this episode! And, congratulations to Bruce for being the 2015 recipient of the prestigious C. Hart Merriam Award from the American Society of Mammalogists!

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Producer, Writer, Creator, Host:
Emily Graslie

Producer, Editor, Camera:
Tom McNamara

Theme music:
Michael Aranda

Created By:
Hank Green
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Filmed on Location and Supported by:
The Field Museum in Chicago, IL
(http://www.fieldmuseum.org)