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Concept
Mole (animal)
Summary
Moles are small mammals adapted to a subterranean lifestyle. They have cylindrical bodies, velvety fur, very small, inconspicuous eyes and ears, reduced hindlimbs, and short, powerful forelimbs with large paws adapted for digging.
The word "mole" refers to any species in the family Talpidae, from the Latin word for mole, talpa. Moles are found in most parts of North America, Europe and Asia.
Moles may be viewed as pests to gardeners, but they provide positive contributions to soil, gardens, and ecosystems, including soil aeration, feeding on slugs and small creatures that eat plant roots, and providing prey for other wildlife. They eat earthworms and other small invertebrates in the soil.
In Middle English, moles were known as moldwarp. The expression "don't make a mountain out of a molehill" (which means "exaggerating problems") was first recorded in Tudor times. By the era of Early Modern English, the mole was also known in English as mouldywarp, a word having cognates in other Germanic languages such as German (Maulwurf), and Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Icelandic (muldvarp, moldvarp, mullvad, moldvarpa), where muld/mull/mold refers to soil and varp/vad/varpa refers to throwing, hence "one who throws soil" or "dirt-tosser".
Male moles are called "boars"; females are called "sows".
Moles have been found to tolerate higher levels of carbon dioxide than other mammals, because their blood cells have a special form of hemoglobin that has a higher affinity to oxygen than other forms. In addition, moles use oxygen more effectively by reusing the exhaled air, and can survive in low-oxygen environments such as burrows.
Moles have polydactyl forepaws: each has an extra thumb (also known as a prepollex) next to the regular thumb. While the mole's other digits have multiple joints, the prepollex has a single, sickle-shaped bone that develops later and differently from the other fingers during embryogenesis from a transformed sesamoid bone in the wrist, independently evolved but similar to the giant panda thumb.
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