Can the fleshmoles breathe?

The bonegrass fields are full of other life, despite their dangers. Lots of insects, some birds, and even a handful of reptiles have adapted to the paralytic nature of the air in order to reap the rich rewards offered by the deathly white foliage. Of all of these creatures the most advanced by far are the fleshmoles.

Rather than adapting to the neurotoxins emitted by the plantlife the fleshmoles (actually a branch of naked mole rats) have an alternate strategy:

They rarely breathe fresh air.

Fleshmoles don't surface unless there is prey that has been ensnared by the bonegrass, and even then they tunnel directly up through the ground into the flesh of whatever has fallen (causing excruciating pain if the prey hasn't already died). They're adapted to deal with high CO2 concentrations and the noxious atmosphere of their underground hives (A matriarchal eusocial structure keeps fleshmole colonies together), but of course occasional O2 injections are required.

To this end weak or old fleshmoles are driven to the surface, where they take a huge lungful of air, become paralyzed (neatly plugging the hole and removing the paralytic agent from the air they breathed in), then are dragged back down and rapidly consumed by their brethren. Fleshmoles also burrow into the chest cavities of larger prey in order to suck down as much O2 rich flesh as possible.

The question is this, given that I'm not particularly hot on my rodent biology:

Is it possible for such a colony to maintain a workable O2 supply, given that they're fairly well optimised for high CO2 life?

posted about 8 years ago

Joe Bloggs‭

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