The first mammal proved to smell underwater, Star-nosed mole is a small mole with bizarre appearance. It is covered with thick, blackish-brown fur. It has 22 tentacles around its nose. Along with that, it has 25,000 sensors in its tentacles. They are excellent swimmers too. The weird looking animal also holds the title of World’s fastest eater. It is the only mole species that lives in swamps and marshes. Star-nosed moles are indeed a unique species. At times, an animal might lose its looks to gain anatomical benefits. Yes, we are talking about the Star-Nosed Mole. Each and every fleshy ray in its snout contains hundreds and thousands of sensory organs which help them smell, navigate and hunt for prey. It is also one of the blind animals in the world.
These fleshy wave-like structures help them do everything including finding its way back home from an unknown environment. It is known to spend most of its time in water occasionally coming out to the shore to hunt other prey. The species can grow upto 20 cm long and it is almost completely blind and uses its 22 tentacles around their nose to detect its prey and have around 25,000 sensors in their tentacles making it one of the most sensitive animals in the world. They are excellent swimmers and one of the first mammal that can detect smell underwater. They love to hunt and eat insects, fish, worms and other invertebrates that they find in the water.
Have probably caught more than 25 moles in my lawn the past 2 decades.
What I do, is follow the tunnels to points where new tunneling has occurred, then wait with a shovel, at the end of a tunnel(s) until I see the dirt being pushed up, indicating that the mole is just below, several inches below the ground.
Then I push the shovel deeply into the ground behind the mole and scoop out a huge chunk of soil/dirt, hopefully with the mole in it.
