And, the award for strangest mammal goes to …

If there were such a prize, the naked mole rat could well win it.

For one thing, it’s naked. Not that most other animals wear clothes, but quite a few have noticeable hair or fur. The mole rat is, you might say, pinkly, wrinkly.

They are coldblooded, which seems wrong. No other known mammal is.

They live in underground tunnel complexes in colonies of hundreds led by a queen with a few male consorts, and lots of workers and soldiers. Doesn’t sound like a lion or a lamb, or even a platypus.

Until recently scientists thought they never got cancer. Then two mole rats in a lab were found to have it. Still, there are a lot of mole rats in the world and only two known to have cancer.