Naked mole rats have accents -- and use them to discriminate against foreigners

[Bootes Void]

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/29/world/naked-mole-rat-accent-intl-scli-grm-scn/index.html

Strangers are just friends you haven't met -- unless you're a naked mole rat.

Arguably nature's least beautiful animals, naked mole rats speak in dialects local to their own colonies and are hostile to outsiders, according to a study published Friday.
Naked mole rats are "really highly unusual in that they're the most social rodent that we know of," Gary Lewin, senior author and professor in neurobiology at Germany's Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association (MDC), told CNN.
The furless rodents can live in colonies of up to 300 members, and though there is only one breeding female per colony, "every animal in the colony has a role: Some are soldiers, some are workers, and they cooperate," he said. "It's always been a mystery how they can be so organized."

Mole rat colonies are incredibly xenophobic. If a mole rat comes from a different colony, within minutes, they are recognized and usually killed by the colony it invades," Lewin told CNN.
Researchers believe the mole rats use their vocalizations to recognize whether a fellow rodent is from the same or a foreign colony.
They played the rats back the vocalizations, and found that they would answer recordings from their own colony -- but not from a foreign colony.

Naked mole rats can also be sneaky. While the queen is the only breeding female in a colony, the team observed cases where a high-ranking female and a team of accomplices would "assassinate" the queen.
"The dialects before the queen was gone were much more cohesive -- they all spoke with a very similar dialect. As soon as the queen was gone there was a period of anarchy, and everyone started speaking a little more variably," he said, adding that as soon as a new queen was established, the dialects became focused again.
Naked mole rats are not the only animals to have local dialects -- primates and whales have been found to converse in a common tongue.
However, Lewin said, these larger and wilder animals are often harder to study than mole rats.
The study was published in the journal Science.

[Progressive Pessimist]

They aren't discriminating against foreigners! They're just subterraneaniously anxious.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Naked mole rats are not the only animals to have local dialects -- primates and whales have been found to converse in a common tongue.
However, Lewin said, these larger and wilder animals are often harder to study than mole rats.
The study was published in the journal Science.

Humans are too hard to study because they are too wild to crawl around blindly in tunnels their whole life.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

A textbook example of naked aggression.

[KoopaDaQuick 🇵🇸]

Color me surprised that Republicans are a lot like naked mole rats.

[The Houstonian]

This proves that xenophobia is natural and what God intended.

[T'Chenka]

This proves that xenophobia is natural and what God intended.

I'm not sure if you're criticizing God here or defending modern human xenophobia...

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

#Rufusdidnothingwrong

[The Houstonian]

This proves that xenophobia is natural and what God intended.

I'm not sure if you're criticizing God here or defending modern human xenophobia...

Guess.

[Progressive Pessimist]

#Rufusdidnothingwrong

BREAKING NEWS: Rufus of 'Kim Possible' fame has been arrested by the FBI for his part in the Capitol insurrection on January 6. He has been accused of disorderly conduct and trespassing. He allegedly led the effort into finding the tunnels beneath the building insisting in a Parler post that he had the talent for finding them. 

[Leinad]

Very interesting! It would be interesting to see how much they can map out those differences. How much is tone, intonation, or different sounds altogether. I know they don't really have words, but it would be interesting to see if there's any logic to the patterns and how they evolve. Honestly, I don't really know what a naked mole rat even sounds like. I don't encounter very many, being that I live quite far from their habitat.

This proves that xenophobia is natural and what God intended.

Almost as if "the natural" is sometimes not "the good," and whether something is "natural" adds little or no moral value.

[Leinad]

They are very communicative and can often be heard chirping, squeaking, twittering and grunting to one another.

Oh there we go. So like [insert convenient target of joke here], amirite?

[The Houstonian]

This proves that xenophobia is natural and what God intended.

Almost as if "the natural" is sometimes not "the good," and whether something is "natural" adds little or no moral value.

I agree.

[SWE]

This proves that xenophobia is natural and what God intended.

I'm not sure if you're criticizing God here or defending modern human xenophobia...

#godisoverparty