Grim news showers us every day from the war in Ukraine, and given the real possibility of an extensive nuclear war, we may wonder what would happen to life on our planet if the worst possible scenario occurred?
It might mean the end of the human species and most of the larger organisms that dwell on the surface of our planet, given the expected high radiation doses and extreme disturbances in weather and climate.
In other words, it would be a major extinction event similar in severity or even worse than those earlier in Earth’s geological history.
In the other extinction events, life always recovered, but could an intelligent species capable of technological advancement evolve after some time? And possibly do better than us?
I believe that the naked mole-rat could become that species. It would most likely survive a nuclear war because it spends nearly all of its time in subsurface burrows. There it would be shielded from both radiation and extreme weather.
Naked mole-rats are also extremely resistant to cancer, which would help them to survive in a high-radiation environment. Their long-life span is about 30 years, which is a record for rodents.
