A sighting of a mole with no eyes, iridescent fur, and remarkable hearing abilities has been confirmed in the sand dune regions of South Africa, more than eight decades after it first entered the scientific record. For years, the species was feared extinct, surviving only in memory and museum specimens.
The recent discovery of Winton’s golden mole (Cryptochloris wintoni) was established through environmental DNA analysis conducted by a team from the Endangered Wildlife Trust and the University of Pretoria. This collaborative effort, conducted in South Africa, was documented in Biodiversity and Conservation. It marks the eleventh international initiative of its kind since 2017 and underscores ongoing efforts to locate and protect elusive desert-adapted mammals.
An illustration of Winton’s golden mole has become part of the record, highlighting a small, squat animal with dense, light gray fur that carries a yellowish tinge. In length, the creature typically measures between 70 and 85 millimeters. A distinctive feature is the absence of eyes, a design that suits its life of burrowing. Its forelimbs carry pointed claws that propel it through loose sand and compact soil while tunneling underground.
The physical profile reflects a creature adapted to subterranean living. The absence of vision is complemented by a keen sense of hearing and an extraordinary ability to detect ground vibrations. The animal remains mostly hidden beneath surface sand, seldom emerging into the open, which is why researchers rely on indirect methods to study it. The image of the species is that of a small, robust creature that thrives in a world where light rarely penetrates the tunnels it inhabits.
Extracting DNA from soil
The team led by the Endangered Wildlife Trust employed the emerging method of environmental DNA, or eDNA. This approach captures genetic material shed by animals as they move through their habitat, often found in skin cells, hair, and bodily secretions that cling to soil, sand, and other substrates. The technique enables researchers to detect species without direct observation, which is invaluable for secretive, fossorial animals like golden moles.
Golden moles inhabit largely inaccessible burrows and rely on an acute sense of hearing to interpret subterranean movements. They can sense ground vibrations with extraordinary sensitivity, a capability that helps them avoid surface visibility and continue living mostly underground. When traveling beneath the sand, they seldom leave evidence above ground, reinforcing why soil-based genetic surveys are so effective in their study.
“Extracting DNA from soil involves more than just pulling samples,” explained a conservation geneticist involved in the project. “Even before this study began, we were steadily refining our methods and felt confident that, if Winton’s golden mole persisted in the landscape, we would locate it and identify it through sequencing.”
Between June 2021 and the summer of that year, researchers collected more than 100 soil samples along the northwest coast of South Africa, including beaches and dune fields. The study encompassed multiple sites, with Port Nolloth Beach standing out as the only location where Winton’s golden mole had been recorded in 1936, when the species was first described. The research also considered other golden mole species that inhabit sandy environments, each adapted to the same desert life in their own ways.
The central challenge was to determine whether the 1936 reference specimen represented the same species as the animals currently inhabiting the dunes. With only a single reference DNA sequence originally available, the team faced a cautious, stepwise validation process. They waited for a year to access a second genetic sequence from a museum specimen housed in Cape Town, which finally allowed a reliable confirmation of the species identity and its persistence in the wild.
The broader significance of the work lies in demonstrating that modern molecular tools can illuminate the status of cryptic desert fauna. By combining field sampling with rigorous laboratory analysis, researchers can establish whether a rediscovered population matches the historical record or represents a closely related lineage. The discovery reinforces the value of long-term specimen archives and international collaboration in biodiversity monitoring.