@article{7b59f152d842424eba44a55cd59e1b7d,
title = "Surprisingly long survival of premature conclusions about naked mole-rat biology",
abstract = "Naked mole-rats express many unusual traits for such a small rodent. Their morphology, social behaviour, physiology, and ageing have been well studied over the past half-century. Many early findings and speculations about this subterranean species persist in the literature, although some have been repeatedly questioned or refuted. While the popularity of this species as a natural-history curiosity, and oversimplified story-telling in science journalism, might have fuelled the perpetuation of such misconceptions, an accurate understanding of their biology is especially important for this new biomedical model organism. We review 28 of these persistent myths about naked mole-rat sensory abilities, ecophysiology, social behaviour, development and ageing, and where possible we explain how these misunderstandings came about.",
keywords = "ageing, Bathyergidae, cancer, naked mole-rat, physiology, sensory biology, social behaviour, sociality, subterranean life, thermoregulation",
author = "Stan Braude and Susanne Holtze and Sabine Begall and Julia Brenmoehl and Hynek Burda and Philip Dammann and {del Marmol}, Delphine and Ekaterina Gorshkova and Yoshiyuki Henning and Andreas Hoeflich and Annika H{\"o}hn and Tobias Jung and Dania Hamo and Arne Sahm and Yury Shebzukhov and Radim {\v S}umbera and Satomi Miwa and Vyssokikh, {Mikhail Y.} and {von Zglinicki}, Thomas and Olga Averina and Hildebrandt, {Thomas B.}",
note = "Funding Information: This work was supported by the Leibniz Association (SAS‐2016‐FLI‐LFV) and the Washington University in St. Louis (USA). S.Be. thanks Kai R. Caspar for his help with sourcing literature from the 19th century and discussions about diverse topics related to the biology of naked mole‐rats. S.Br. thanks E.M. Braude for help defining myths and unearthing old manuscripts. E.G. was supported by RFBR grant # 19‐34‐51030. Funding Information: This work was supported by the Leibniz Association (SAS-2016-FLI-LFV) and the Washington University in St. Louis (USA). S.Be. thanks Kai R. Caspar for his help with sourcing literature from the 19th century and discussions about diverse topics related to the biology of naked mole-rats. S.Br. thanks E.M. Braude for help defining myths and unearthing old manuscripts. E.G. was supported by RFBR grant # 19-34-51030. Open Access funding enabled and organized by ProjektDEAL Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2020 The Authors. Biological Reviews published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Cambridge Philosophical Society.",
year = "2021",
month = apr,
doi = "10.1111/brv.12660",
language = "English",
volume = "96",
pages = "376--393",
journal = "Biological Reviews",
issn = "1464-7931",
publisher = "Wiley-Blackwell Publishing",
number = "2",
}