Naked mole rat rufus10/2/2023 ![]() ![]() A big chunk of this paper is dedicated to evidence showing that large-spleened mole-rats were healthy, and not simply fighting infection. What’s peculiar about naked mole-rats, however, is that some perfectly healthy adults had enlarged spleens, and these adults were more likely to rank highly in the social hierarchy. Spleens are known to swell, a phenomenon called splenomegaly, when the body is fighting an infection because this organ houses a swarm of disease-fighting white blood cells. The human spleen is fist-sized, and resides above the stomach and under the left-side ribs. What’s new - While completing other research on naked mole-rats, this team from the Max Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin unintentionally found a strong correlation between social status and spleen size in healthy rats.Īll vertebrate animals have a spleen, an organ that is part of the lymphatic system whose job is to fight infections and keep the body’s fluids in check. But new research published this week in the journal Open Biology from the Max Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin examines a surprising correlation between one crucial organ’s size and a social factor within naked mole-rat colonies. That doesn’t only refer to the actual queen, who is the breeding and dominant female in the colony. Naked mole-rats ( Heterocephalus glaber) are size queens, it turns out. Rufus, the naked mole-rat sidekick from the cartoon “Kim Possible,” could plausibly still be alive today, and he might have a really big spleen. ![]()
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