Star-nosed mole

That pink starburst is not a nose ornament but a hand for feeling the world. The star is 22 fleshy tentacles packed with more than 25,000 tiny touch sensors called Eimer's organs, all in less than a square centimeter, and it sweeps the soil so fast it blurs, touching up to 12 objects a second. The payoff is speed. Guinness lists this North American mole as the fastest-eating mammal, with a fastest recorded time of 120 milliseconds from finding a morsel to swallowing it. When the mole digs, the tentacles fold forward over the nostrils to keep soil out.