The star-nosed mole has tentacles on its face, lives life underground, and has an unusual talent for speed eating.

It’s virtually blind

As they spend so much time underground, the moles have no need for acute vision and so they have small and beady eyes with weak eyesight. Their small size also means they are less likely to sustain an injury or suffer irritation from soil entering the eyes, which is especially important in their cramped underground habitat.

A star-shaped nose

A rosette of 22 fleshy tentacles surround the snout and form the ‘star’ that give the mole its name. The strange appendages have nothing to do with smell and actually assist with touch. Comprising more than 25,000 receptors, they can pick up electrical impulses given off by prey and allow the mole to sense its surroundings.

A long, thick tail.

The star-nosed mole’s fleshy tail changes with the seasons, swelling in the winter to serve as a fat storage organ. It’s covered in short, coarse hairs and concentric rings and is nearly as long as the head and body length combined. As these moles are prolific swimmers, the large tail is also used as a rudder when they are underwater.

They have large, scaled feet

Disproportionately large feet come in handy when you mostly live underground. The moles use their pink, scaled feet much like shovels, giving them the ability to excavate two to three metres (seven to ten feet) of soil per hour! These large feel are also the perfect shape to act as paddles while swimming.

The fastest eating mammal on Earth

How long does it take you to eat lunch? This creature has landed itself a place in the Guinness World Records book for speed eating, taking only 230 milliseconds to find and consume prey, on average. That’s less than a quarter of a second!

Well-adapted, sharp teeth

These moles have 44 teeth in total, including tweezer-like front teeth they use to pluck small insects from the ground with ease. These are so important that 30 per cent of the moles’ brain cortex is dedicated to handling information from their front dentures.

It can smell underwater

The star-nosed mole has developed a clever way of sniffing out prey underwater without drowning. Quickly re-inhaling the air bubbles that leave their nostrils after exhaling, they are able to continuously blow bubbles and sniff at a rate of five to ten times per second.