What is Naked mole rat?
{{Taxobox | name = Naked mole rat | fossil_range = early [[Pliocene]] {{ndash}} Recent | image = Nacktmull.jpg | image_width = 200px | regnum = [[Animal]]ia | classis = [[Mammal]]ia | ordo = [[Rodent]]ia | familia = [[Bathyergidae]] | genus = '''''Heterocephalus''''' | range_map=Heterocephalus glaber dis.png | range_map_caption=Distribution of the Naked Mole Rat | binomial = ''Heterocephalus glaber''}} == Physical description == Typically, the animals are between eight and ten centimetres long, and weigh about 30&nbsp;grams. Their eyes are quite small, and they do not see very well. Their legs are thin and short. Nevertheless, they are very good at moving underground and can move backward as fast as they can move forward. They have large, protruding teeth, which they use to dig. Their lips are sealed just behind the teeth to prevent soil from filling their mouths while digging. They have little hair and wrinkled pink or yellowish skin. The naked mole rat is well adapted for the limited availability of [[oxygen]] within the tunnels that are its habitat: its [[lungs]] are very small and its blood has a very strong affinity for oxygen, increasing the efficiency of oxygen uptake. It has a very low respiration and metabolic rate for an animal of its size, about two thirds that of a [[mouse]] of the same size. It only uses very little oxygen. In long periods of hunger, such as a [[drought]], its metabolic rate can reduce by up to twenty-five percent. The naked mole rat can only regulate its body temperature in the typical mammalian fashion over a relatively narrow range of temperatures. Outside this range, it overheats or cools. It can overcome this by its behaviour. When cold, naked mole rats huddle together or bask in the shallow parts of their burrow systems. When they get too hot, they retreat to the deeper, cooler parts of their tunnel system.<ref name=ross>{{cite book |author=Ross Piper |title=Extraordinary animals: an encyclopedia of curious and unusual animals |url=https://archive.org/details/extraordinar