Plugs

Various ant species do a similar thing where their soldiers have really big, flat heads and when their nest gets attacked, the soldiers stick their head into the entrance way, so the attackers can't come inside.

Apparently, this kind of behaviour is referred to as phragmosis.

They also drop a cool shield in Elden Ring.
Also Cork Lid Trapdoor Spiders

Thank you America for growing your population so large. When climate change gets so bad that the dykes pop, we can just grab the nearest American to plug the hole and save humanity.

work for volcanic eruption too
- We've been training with Taco Bell Diablo sauce for such an occasion.
I knew I was good for something
Hey, dykes are people too. I have it on good authority that many of them like biking.
- Yeah, motorbiking ;)

If I'm ever reincarnated as a mole rat, I know I have guaranteed employment.

This would be a very interesting paper to read! any citations?

Not OP, I couldn't find a paper. Just this site that makes the same claim almost word for word, and cites a youtube video of a lecture at Stanford. I didn't watch the video, but this seems best described as a "plausible" explanation rather than a proven fact.
- https://www.science.org/content/article/mole-rat-caste-lives-good-life
- Shit! That video is Robert Sapolsky's lecture. I have something like an "intellectual" crush on him. He has done pioneering works in behavioural science, and at the intersection of human physiology and psychology. One of his books "Why Zebra's Don't Get Ulcers" is entirely on the various effects of psychological stress on the human body.
  
  He observed the same group of baboons for 25 years to understand their behaviour. Each year he used to spend 4 months with this group and observe them for more than 8 hours a day. "A Primate's Memoir" is another book on this. Recently he wrote "Behave", on the deterministic nature of human behaviour, tracing "aggression" back to the evolutionary reasons.
- more like layman meme than science meme :P
- The lecture is quite good.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=1h11m38s&v=Y0Oa4Lp5fLE

https://www.science.org/content/article/mole-rat-caste-lives-good-life

I'll believe it when Ze Frank does a True Facts video on it.

The more I read about them, the more I'm fascinated with how alien they seem to be to me. It's either them or crabs as the ultimate form that everything would come to eventually. Maybe even molecrabs we are yet to discover.

Squid are pretty awesome too. More alien than crabs IMO as well.

Crabs are kinda like big tasty water-spiders.
- I think octopus are the most awesome animals on the planet, beating crows for the title.
- Do you have some links or recs to drop for me and others about squids? That'd be sweet.

TIL, thx

Is this why grandma keeps calling me skinny and offers foods every time I visit her?

She knows that if anyone wants to get to her, they have to go through you, and the bigger you are, the harder it is.

So that's what butt plugs are

Also both are probably covered in mud when you pull them out.
- Holy molé

#lifegoals ✌️🖖

apparently this is a myth. thats too bad

Naked mole rats are considered an example of a truly "eusocial" mammal analogue to ants. More evidence for the idea that social behavior/societal grouping, once established in a species, characterizes it more potently than just about anything else in its genetic history. Chimps might be our closest genetic relatives, but the way we live and think is probably much more similar to these guys.