This amazing species is actually more aquatic than its ground dwelling cousins and lives in the banks of streams and marshes of Eastern North America, such as Newfoundland. The Star-nosed mole has many special adaptations which are important for the habitat it lives in.
Adaptations
The star nosed mole has one of the most complex sensory organ, this is its most distinctive feature of its body used for the sense of smell. It unusually has 100,000 touch fibres within its strange looking nose. It has evolved to have this sense as it is essential for survival within the dark marshy areas of North America, so a specialised adaptation of its sense of smell comes in very handy when trying to find food such as aquatic insects and fish.
Advantages
The star-nosed mole has a very well adapted body which consists of having abnormally large shovel like feet, bigger than the rest of its limbs. This adaptation has arisen because of its habitat it has lived in for many years. Its habitat consists of muddy marshes and the sides of river banks, this is where its shovel like front feet are needed in order to dig their tunnels for finding earthworms and their homes much more efficiently. Due to having this amazing adaptation they can dig a tunnel of 8ft in roughly an hour which is 20 cm every 5 minutes, which is very good considering how tough the mud is.
This digging ability gives them a great advantage of finding lots of food within the soil quickly such as earthworms. It also is very helpful for needing a shelter from predators or from rising water levels in the marshes it lives in. These animals although can not breathe underwater they can use their powerful nose that has cleverly adapted to blow an air bubble and then re-sniff the air that was in the bubble it blew to smell things underwater such as aquatic insects. (Khamsi, 2019)
This type of mole may have evolved from its regular species, such as the European mole, which has far less senses on its nose and has not evolved to have that particular shape. A reason why it might have this shape is because due to its changing environment it may have needed to adapt the way it finds its food, this way it could find a much varied amount of food. Having different food available such as aquatic insects make it easier for the Star nosed mole to have a good rich diet, and reduces the chances of this species from dying out due to starvation.
This may have occurred due to natural selection and the survival of the fittest. In this, the star nosed mole that has a good technique or something similar to sniffing the water to find aquatic insects, it may have survived longer to find a mate and pass on its genes. Once it has this technique, it will gradually increase naturally overtime due to the continuous improvement of the technique. Eventually there will be a gene that is successful with its technique of catching more food, due to its highly functioning sensory organ such as its star nose.
THE SECRET LIFE OF ANIMAL SENSES 