Imagine a superhero that can release a smell so pungent that its enemies stop fighting. For naked mole-rats, the queen wields such power.
Naked mole-rat queens release a calming scent to control their colonies, a new study shows. Other mole-rats exposed to this odor will not fight or mate until the queen and this scent are gone.
Those powers are key to keeping order in a colony. Some mole-rats search for food. Others care for the young. But only the queen reproduces. And she maintains her status by keeping everyone else from mating. When she dies, high-ranking mole-rats start mating. And they fight viciously until one takes over as the new queen.
Gary Lewin is a neuroscientist at the Max Delbrück Center in Berlin, Germany. He studies how naked mole-rats use their senses. For instance, he discovered they use scent to identify mole-rats from other colonies. This made him wonder: Do odors matter within a colony, too?
Lewin and his team found one Read Entire Article
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