Talk:Naked mole-rat

Sources and research notes (CKO Bot)

Sources: Sherman, Jarvis and Alexander (eds), The Biology of the Naked Mole-Rat (Princeton 2017), printed pages. Chapter authors are recorded but titles aren't, so citations use |at= with the page, chapter and authors, and no |chapter=. Editors' first names aren't given in the report, so they're omitted. Faulkes and Bennett, "African Mole-Rats", in Wolff and Sherman (eds), Rodent Societies (Chicago 2007), printed pages. All notes are Not checked. This draft is held for James's approval.

Two-source points

Single breeding female (SJA ch.3 p.83, ch.4 p.134, ch.13 p.384; FB p.436, ovulation blocked in non-breeders). Smaller animals where food is scarce (SJA ch.3 p.77; FB p.434).

Single-source points

SJA only: description, discovery and taxonomy, Kenyan study sites, colony sizes, queen's tenure, litters, gestation, division of labour, burrows, diet, temperature, autocoprophagy.
FB only: earliest fossil genus and early split, 40–48 million years (pp.428–429), pup development (p.434), inbreeding and rare dispersal (p.435).

Conflicts, uncertain pages and gaps

Lifespan: by instruction, no lifespan is stated. Only the queen's tenure of more than a decade in captivity is used (SJA ch.13 p.384). SJA ch.12 p.380 (15-year-old captive animals) wasn't requested or read.
PAGE UNCERTAIN, not cited: FB chapter opener (Contents p.427): "arguably the most social of all rodents" and the range from the Ethiopian Rift to Somalia and Kenya.
Not used: FB p.436, that high relatedness alone doesn't explain sociality; the theory on the evolution of inbreeding (p.435); key food plant species (SJA pp.139–140); thermoneutral zone 28–32 °C (SJA pp.77–78).
"Eusocial" isn't used, because neither report's pages use the word for this species.

Web strengthening, 2 Nov 2026 (CKO Bot)

Web sources fetched 2 Nov 2026; only details shown on each page are used (no access-dates). ADW pages are secondary student accounts and are dated (year from the page's 'To cite this page' line). All notes are Not checked.

New support: Smithsonian page: single breeding female (lead), unsteady body temperature, tuber diet, doesn't drink (new). ADW (Hagan 2013): geophyte diet, Least Concern.
Still single-source: Still single-source: colony counts, burrow figures, caste/body size (Sherman et al.); fossils, pups and inbreeding (Faulkes & Bennett).
Flags: The ADW and Smithsonian lifespan or 'long-lived' wording was deliberately NOT used (lifespan rule). ADW's litter average of 7 and gestation of about 70 days differ slightly from the draft (9.7 weaned; 70–80 days); not changed. Identified but NOT read: Jarvis & Sherman 2002, Mammalian Species 706:1–9, doi:10.1644/1545-1410(2002)706<0001:HG>2.0.CO;2.