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Thanks to Catherine and arilloyd for suggesting the marsupial mole!\n\nFurther reading:\nNorthern marsupial mole: Rare blind creature photographed in Australian outback\nThe marsupial mole, adorable little not-mole from Australia [photo from article above]:\n\n\n\nGrant's golden mole, adorable little not-mole from Africa:\n\n\n\nShow transcript:\nWelcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I\u2019m your host, Kate Shaw.\nThis week we have a little short episode about a very small Australian animal suggested by two listeners: Catherine, who has the best name ever, and someone called arilloyd who left us a nice review and suggested this animal in the review. I\u2019m not sure I\u2019m pronouncing their name right, so apologies if not. The animal is the unusual but very cute marsupial mole.\nThere are two closely related species of marsupial mole, one that lives farther north than the other. They look very similar, with silky golden fur, strong, short legs with strong claws for digging, a very short tail, no external ears, and no eyes. The marsupial mole doesn\u2019t have eyes at all. It doesn\u2019t need eyes because it spends almost its entire life underground.\nAll this sounds similar to other moles, but the marsupial mole isn\u2019t related to other moles. Other moles are placental mammals while the marsupial mole is a (guess, you have to guess), right, it\u2019s a marsupial! That means its babies are born very early and crawl into the mother\u2019s pouch to finish developing. The marsupial mole has two teats, so it can raise two babies at a time.\nThe marsupial mole grows around 6 inches long, or about 16 cm, and is a little chonky animal with a pouch that faces backwards so sand won\u2019t get in it. It has a leathery nose and small teeth, and its front feet are large with two big claws.\nWe actually don\u2019t know very much about the marsupial mole because it\u2019s so seldom seen. Not only does it live underground, it lives in the dry interior of Australia, the Great Sandy Desert. It probably also lives in other desert areas of Australia.\nScientists think the marsupial mole originally evolved to dig not in desert sand but in the soft, wet ground in rainforests. Over millions of years Australia became more and more dry, until the rainforests eventually gave way to the current desert conditions. The marsupial mole had time to adapt as its environment changed, and now it\u2019s extremely well adapted to living in sand. It sort of swims through the sand using its big paddle-shaped front feet, kicking the sand behind it with its back legs. Unlike other moles, the marsupial mole doesn\u2019t dig permanent tunnels and the sand just collapses behind it.\nWhile the marsupial mole can\u2019t see, and probably doesn\u2019t have great hearing by our standards, it does have a good sense of smell in order to sniff out insect eggs and larvae, worms, and other small, soft food. It probably searches mainly for insect nests where it can find lots of food at one time, like ant nests. There are also reports of it eating adult insects, seeds, and even small lizards.\nThe reason the marsupial mole looks and acts so much like placental moles is due to convergent evolution. The mole\u2019s body shape and habits just work really well for an animal that wants to dig around and eat grubs. Like other moles, it has trouble regulating its body temperature since most of the time it doesn\u2019t need to do so. If it gets too hot, it can dig deeper into the sand where it\u2019s cooler.\nThe marsupial mole is most similar to a completely unrelated placental mammal, Grant\u2019s golden mole, which lives in a few parts of coastal South Africa and Namibia in Africa. Grant\u2019s golden mole lives in sandy areas and swims through the sand like the marsupial mole does. It mainly eats termites and other insects, but it will also eat small reptiles. Its fur is a sandy golden color and it has no external ears, no eyes, and three big claws on its front feet. It only grows about 3 and a half inches long, or 9 cm, which makes it the smallest golden mole.