Every so often, when night falls on Meru National Park in Kenya, an event takes place few people have ever witnessed — the migration of the naked mole-rat.
Naked mole-rats are mostly hairless, nearly blind subterranean rodents that resemble wrinkly pink sausages. From skin-covered eyes to sabre-tooth-like incisors built for gnawing through compacted soil, most everything about these animals is adapted to a life spent below ground, where they dwell in giant, queen-dominated colonies. Down there, the rodents have virtually no predators and no competition for the roots and tubers they eat.
