> CASES OF GENETIC RELATEDNESS

Naked mole rats (Heterocephalus glaber) also live in colonies with just one, much larger reproductive female. Other females become sterile. As mammals, however, the mole rats do not share the honeybees' genomic structure. Yet they do live in family-based groups and are highly inbred. Individuals in the same burrow typically share at least 80% of their genes. Mole rat socialty itself seems an adaptation to patchy food resources in an arid environment (O'Riain and Faulkes 2008). Their striking breeding structure, however, with its costly helping, seems shaped by kin selection (Jarvis 1981; Sherman, Jarvis and Alexander 1991).