and remains active in winter when it has been observed tunneling through the snow and swimming in ice-covered streams. C. cristata is particularly adept at thermoregulation, maintaining a high body temperature in a wide range of external conditions relative to other Talpid moles. This explains its ability to thrive in cold aquatic environments. Little is known about the social behavior of the species, but it is suspected to be colonial. This mole mates in late winter or early spring, and the female has one litter of typically four or five young in late spring or early summer. However, females are known to have a second litter if their first is unsuccessful. At birth, each offspring is about long, hairless, and weighs about 1.5 g. Their eyes, ears, and star are all sealed, only opening and becoming useful about 14 days after birth. They become independent after about 30 days and are fully mature after 10 months. Predators include the red-tailed hawk, great horned owl, barn owl, screech owl, foxes, weasels, minks, various skunks and mustelids, and large fish such as the northern pike, as well as domestic cats. Snout comparison to visual organ Vanderbilt University neuroscientist Kenneth Catania, who has studied star-nosed moles for 20 years, recently turned his research to the study of star-moles as a route to understanding general principles about how human brains process and represent sensory information. He called star-moles "a gold mine for discoveries about brains and behavior in general—and an unending source of surprises". Comparing the mole's snout to vision, his research showed that whenever the mole touched potential food, it made a sudden movement to position the smallest rays, the twin rays number 11, over the object for repeated rapid touches. He reports: "The similarities with vision were striking. The star movements resembled saccadic eye movements—quick movements of the eyes from one focus point to another—in their speed and time-course. The two 11th rays are over-represented in the primary somatosensory cortex relative to their size, just as the small visual fovea in primates—a small region in the center of the eye that yields the sharpest vision—is over-represented in primary visual cortex." He notes that some bats also have an auditory fovea for processing important echolocation frequencies, suggesting that "evolution has repeatedly come to the same solution for constructing a high-acuity sensory system: subdivide the sensory surface into a large, lower-resolution periphery for scanning