Moles Well Adapted to Tunnel Life

First posted on 07-20-2010

So, maybe moles don’t really want to tear up lawns or destroy gardens on their search for edible insects and worms. You might say, it’s just in their blood.

Scientists at the University of Manitoba studied the blood of three different kinds of North American moles because, as Kevin Campbell who led the team observed, “Unlike terrestrial animals, moles are routinely exposed to conditions of low oxygen and high carbon dioxide. Burrowing is difficult in itself, but is made even more challenging by the requirement to re-breathe their own expired air.”

And what makes this possible, according to Campbell, is a “super hemoglobin” that facilitates the creature’s burrowing behavior by allowing it to more efficiently transport carbon dioxide in its body. Campbell said the hemoglobin “greatly enhances [the mole’s] carbon dioxide carrying capacity.”

Researchers determined that it wasn’t so much how a mole’s hemoglobin bound to oxygen in its body. In fact, genetically speaking, some of the sites where oxygen molecules would attach are actually missing. But that simply allows room for more carbon dioxide molecules.

So, it seems moles can live quite comfortably deep underground for a long, long time. All the better to create more havoc for those of us who don’t assimilate carbon dioxide quite as well and are forced to live topside.

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