Female giant African pouched rats are incredible animals – they can be trained to detect landmines and tuberculosis, but that’s not all! These rodents possess the ability to change their reproductive organs in an amazing way.
Normal female mammals, when they reach puberty, open up the entrance of their vagina, which then stays that way forever. But with these special rats, their vaginal entrance will remain sealed until adult hood. Also what’s even more awesome is that after giving birth, it can seal itself up again – meaning it can open and close multiple times throughout its lifetime!
A new study called “Extreme Plasticity of Reproductive State in a Female Rodent” was recently published and shows that certain characteristics in adult animals may change if put under enough pressure.
Scientists are trying to figure out how to breed rodents in greater numbers because these animals can have lots of important uses, such as in the military, helping detect dangerous materials, and assisting with human welfare. This new study might give us some clues about how to make more of them. It could potentially help other mammals (even humans!) who need help reproducing too.
Alex Ophir, a professor of psychology, said that the more we understand about how animals reproduce, the better insight we get into questions related to women’s health and reproductive health. Examining other kinds of mammals can give us helpful information that helps improve women’s wellbeing!
Most animals only breed during certain times of the year, and this is usually done with their hormones. But giant African pouched rats are different—they actually close up their genitals when they don’t want to reproduce. Scientists aren’t sure why these rodents have this unusual trait yet, but they think it might be because the ‘dominant’ females use smelly signals (called pheromones) in their pee to tell other female rats not to mate.
One explanation is that one female might be trying to get other females to not have babies so they can help her take care of hers instead. Another possibility is that if there are too many babies then there won’t be enough food for everyone, and the female could be keeping down the numbers of other’s babies in order to make sure she has enough resources for her own.
When one of the female pouched rats from Ophir’s colony died, 7 other female rats became “patent” (which means open in this context) very quickly. This led him to think that changes in the social environment can control how patent a rat is.
Scientists discovered that female animals with and without patents weren’t different in terms of weight, size or their “private area” distance. However, they did find they hadVery different vaginal-probe depth, nipple size, cervix and uterine widths. Plus, the urine and poo from each group was also very distinct from each other.
In 2010, the US Department of Defense got interested in a certain animal species because there was a group called APOPO that taught animals how to find and remove landmines and tuberculosis from the ground. Ophir was a part of a team studying this species at Oklahoma State University back then. In the future, Ophir will keep researching more about their amazing sense of smell and hopes to learn even more about their unique behaviors and physical features.
“There is an amazing ability for some things to change form, which means that maybe we are more flexible than previously thought. This just shows us that not everything has rules and boundaries – it can be a bit different from what people know and expect.” said Ophir.
The United States Army has funded a study called “Extreme Plasticity of Reproductive State in a Female Rodent”. It was published on 27 March 2023 and appears in the journal Current Biology. The main goal of the study is to better understand the differences and applications of animal models that are related to diabetic retinopathy.
