Neurobiologist Kenneth Catania's passion for scrutinizing odd animal adaptations all started with a creature with a 22-point star on its face. Catania first saw a star-nosed mole (Condylura cristatd) in a children's book. Later as a 10-year-old, he found a dead one near a stream close to his home in Columbia, Md. From then on, he kept his eyes peeled for more. He had to wait until he was in college, when he landed a research position that required him to trap star-nosed moles in Pennsylvania's wetlands. At the time, no one knew what that unique nose was good for, and he wanted to figure it out.
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