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:
“On her left breast
A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops
I’ th’ bottom of a cowslip.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“A rat crept softly through the vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
While I was fishing in the dull canal
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse
Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck
And on the king my father’s death before him.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)