With an entirely hairless body, buckteeth and vast wrinkles, the naked mole rat is not winning the animal kingdom beauty pageant anytime soon.

But these bald rodents serve a greater purpose than starring on the TV show “Kim Possible.” Inside its eerie pink exterior may lie the key to better understanding how mammals age, according to biology lecturer Stan Braude. For the past 20 years, Braude has studied naked mole rat colonies in Kenya, tagging and releasing almost 10,000 of them since his study began.

Naked mole rat aging studies have increased since 2002, when a mole rat in a lab in South Africa broke the record for longest lifetime of a rodent, living to age 28.

The increased focus on how naked mole rats age has led scientists to reconsider current theories about aging.

“One of the biggest theories is that, during your life, you accumulate oxidative damage,” said Braude. “This oxidative damage produces many of the effects of old age.”

Recent attention to naked mole rats, however, contradicts this idea.

“If you look at the research on mole rats, they don’t have any special mechanisms for avoiding oxidative damage,” said Braude. “They suffer as badly as anyone else.”

Braude uses this data to suggest that oxidative damage may not be the largest factor for aging, but acknowledges that much more research should be conducted before conclusions can be drawn.

“Oxidative damage is a whole industry,” he said. “They’re not going to be convinced by one little rodent.”

He argues that the rodent’s lifestyle is key to understanding the evolution of its longevity. Operating in a hive structure, most of the young naked mole rats leave their underground colony, exposing them to predation. Those that survive dispersal will be very safe for the rest of their lives and can live to be very old.

The median age for mole rats is actually quite low, though they produce many offspring. The few who survive youth tend to live a very long life and this pattern resembles those found in organisms such as oak trees, clams and sea turtles.

“If we understand how these different species do it, then the next step is to figure out how we can get those benefits with either drug treatments or changing diet or changing lifestyle,” said Braude.

For Braude, whose office is decorated with mole rat magnets, rubber toys and preserved remains of a queen mole rat, these hairless wonders have become a fascination. He is currently writing a book summarizing the phenomena he observed during his 20 years of field work in Africa, including mole rat longevity, colony behavior and rare instances where mole rats kidnap younger mole rats from neighboring colonies.

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