'skine.art - Moleskine Art

stasya 1:16 am on February 17, 2009 | #

love your story and sketch
Margie 8:39 am on February 17, 2009 | #

really good sketch.
what is with the “star nose”… what do the moles do with that nose? How strange.
What a freaky (and exciting) thing to happen with a mole as a kid!
steveloya 6:59 pm on February 17, 2009 | #

Thanks, both of you! Yes, what is with that strange nose, huh?
Margie 8:12 pm on February 17, 2009 | #

I needed to know about that nose, here’s what I found:

The mole’s most distinctive feature is a circle of 22 mobile, pink, fleshy tentacles at the end of the snout. These are used to identify food by touch, such as worms, insects and crustaceans…. A report in the journal Nature gives this animal the title of fastest-eating mammal, taking as short as 120 milliseconds (average: 227 milliseconds) to identify and consume individual food items. (That’s faster than I can eat!)

These tennacles are used to touch and they blow bubbles and re-inhale them to smell their food…. they have poor vision but a keen sense of smell underwater so they can find theri food- worms, insects and mollusks and crustaceans.

Take a look at this nose:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10834-starnosed-mole-can-sniff-underwater-videos-reveal.html

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