Mole rat or mole-rat refers to several groups of burrowing rodents or * Bathyergidae, a family of about 20 species from Africa, including:
- Heterocephalus glaber, the naked mole rat
- Spalacidae, a family of about 30 species from Eurasia and northeast Africa, including:
- Tachyoryctes, a genus of about 15 species from Africa
- Blind mole rats (Spalacinae), a subfamily of about 15 living species from southeastern Europe, southwestern Asia, and northeastern Africa;
- Zokors (Myospalacinae), occasionally called mole rats, about eight species from central and eastern Asia
- Nesokia indica from southern and southwestern Asia and Egypt, also known as the short-tailed mole rat
- Bandicota bengalensis from southern Asia, also known as the Indian mole rat
- Chelemys macronyx from southernmost South America, also known as the mountain mole rat
Famous quotes containing the words mole and/or rat:
“For like a mole I journey in the dark,
A-travelling along the underground”
—John Davidson (1857–1909)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)