Mondo Knows Facts
The star-nosed mole snout holds 22,000 microscopic touch organs
Star-shaped snout rays identify and consume insect prey in milliseconds.
Living in damp wet soils, the star-nosed mole features twenty-two pink fleshy rays surrounding its nostrils. These rays are covered with over 22,000 highly sensitive touch receptors called Eimer organs, letting the mole touch and decide whether to eat prey in 8 milliseconds.
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Tags: star-nosed-mole, mammals, touch
The star-nosed mole snout holds 22,000 microscopic touch organs: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- Star-shaped snout rays identify and consume insect prey in milliseconds. The figure is taken from National Institutes of Health, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a animals fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Animals shelf, one of 1,090 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
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