Naked mole rats.
The naked mole rat is a rodent that is also known as a sand dog. They live beneath arid savannahs and grasslands in regions such as Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia in Africa. The physical characteristics of naked mole rats include degenerated eyes, protruding front teeth, flaccid pink, and short limbs. Their lifespan is about 28 years, which is about 10 times the lifespan of the average house mouse.
The naked mole rat has a similar lifestyle and social structure to that of insects, living in groups and living underground, with about 80 members in a group. Only one female naked mole rat in each colony is called the "Queen", and she is the only individual capable of reproducing offspring. The other members are mainly labor moles, which do not usually reproduce.
The longevity of naked mole rats may be related to the fact that their cells secrete a substance called hyaluronic acid. Hyaluronic acid has the effect of inhibiting cell proliferation, which can stop the development of cancer cells, so that naked mole rats are not prone to cancer. In addition, naked mole rats live underground for a long time and need to squeeze into small burrows, and hyaluronic acid was originally secreted to enhance **elasticity, but it also unexpectedly has an anti-cancer effect.
The study of naked mole rats is of great significance for revealing the genetic mechanisms of human longevity, and their genetic code may contain the secrets of human longevity.
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