Talk:Mole (animal)

Mole Diet

The area of the mole(animal) article referring to their diet is very incomplete, only containing one piece of information that pertains to 'how' a certain breed of mole eats, reather than 'what'. It does not refer to the whole species, and contains no real information on eating habits. I believe that the section should be improved and cleaned up, if anyone has information availible. Tikkimann 5 November 2006 (UTC)

You are misusing the words "species." Excuse me, Moles are not a single species, but a family of animals. You are also misuing the word "breed." That is used for types of domesticated animals, mostly dogs.

To answer your question: basically, they all eat worms, insects, etc., but the star-nosed mole will eat fish. Dora Nichov 14:15, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

An article in our local paper trying to downplay moles as a pest did not mention earthworms as the food, but rather white grubs, which was promoted as a bigger problem for lawns. If you have moles, the article said, you have white grubs. Shocking Blue (talk) 10:46, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Commercial exploitation

Shouldn't there be a section on the commercial exploitation of this animal? There's an image of a man selling coats made from its skin and I know that during the 19th Century that hats were made from the skins of moles. Later on there was the development of moleskin cotton cloth, but once these animals were extensively exploited for clothing of various sorts. Unfortunately I don't know too much about it.OzoneO (talk) 04:14, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there should. Chrisrus (talk) 07:37, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Respiratory System

This article on the mole in general is lacking on information about its respiratory system (in particular, its breathing process when under the soil). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.228.102.184 (talk) 18:58, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Point well taken! People do wonder how moles can breathe underground, so users might come here looking for that information. It should be included in the article. Chrisrus (talk) 03:59, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Removal of Images

Some images have been removed without regard to Wikipedia's Policy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#Deleting_images "Contact (through their talk page) the user who uploaded the image, telling them of your concerns. You may be able to resolve the issue at this point."

I have restored the images and left a similar message on their talk page. Please be considerate of other people's work in the future. Thank you.

You confused two totally different things: deletion of images from the server and removal of images from an article. The linked policy has nothing to do with removal of images from an article, which is the case here.--Svetovid (talk) 22:18, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Is It True?

Is it true that moles have very sensitive noses, and if you touch the nose, they will have a major nose bleed and die? Is it also true that they are blind? Yours curiously ACBestMy ContributionsAutograph Book 19:04, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes and no. Yes, many moles have very sensitive noses to help them feel around underground. No, it's not true that if you even just touch the nose of a mole they will have a major nose bleed and die. If you are interested in what is probably one of the most amazing mammal noses ever, see the article Star-nosed mole. Is this the mole you'd heard this story about? They use their noses all the time to touch all kinds of things, so there is no way that just touching something with it would injure them. If you find a start-nosed mole on the lawn, it might wave its nose-feelers at you and you might be tempted to touch it. If you do, the mole, which can’t see you, will suddenly realize that you are there and suddenly get really startled and react as if it had been hurt, but he’s not hurt, just startled or scared that you're some big animal that wants to eat him. A better thing to do might be to find an earthworm and dangle it in front of him so he can grab it and eat it. Approach him very quietly; hold you're breath so he can't hear you, and don‘t blink! It happens fast. Chrisrus (talk) 04:28, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I also heard this urban myth when I was a child. If it is very prevalent, it might be appropriate for this article, or maybe better yet star-nosed mole to make a point of debunking it. Chrisrus (talk) 04:28, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Size

Someone could add the average size of a mole in this article? Thanks. --24.222.194.159 (talk) 04:02, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree; the article should give a number for the average size of a mole. Also, how small and how big are the smallest and biggest moles. Chrisrus (talk) 04:46, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

What "mole" (animal) means.

This is the best way to do it, I hope it's agreed. Otherwise, it's just too confusing. This should be an article about all moles as commonly defined, even though several basic types are unrelated, they are still moles (the original definition never insisted that they be related), as opposed just being about the Talpidae, who by chance got to be called "true moles." There is always the article Talpidae, anyway. This avoids other problems, too. For example, it allow us to distinguish between moles and desmans.Chrisrus (talk) 07:23, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Ongoing edit war

Please stop undoing all my hard work and explain yourself. We have a fundemental disagreement here as to what a mole is. Moles are and have long been a type of animal, and not a genetically related group. You are clearly biased against the inclusion of some moles and for restricting the definition to a particular group. This article must be about all moles, not just some moles, and has to explain that they are not all related.Chrisrus (talk) 21:00, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I was one of the early authors of this article. The way I have it set up works with the other articles in Soricomorpha. The other "moles" you want to include aren't moles. - UtherSRG (talk) 21:26, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Define "mole".Chrisrus (talk) 21:30, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Moles are the majority of the members of the mammal family Talpidae in the order Soricomorpha. Period. End of story. Anything else is something else. - UtherSRG (talk) 21:36, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

And anything else is served via mole (disambiguation). - UtherSRG (talk) 21:36, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

You want to bring an article about moles in line with genetic taxonomy. This is very problematic and difficult to do. According to the article Soricomorpha many of them aren’t moles. Also, according to the same article and the article Talpidae, many of that group are not moles either. According to this article, the subfamily scalopinae are all moles, but they aren’t all the moles in the Talpidae family; there are more in the subfamily Talpinae, which includes many species which also are not moles. The result is a confusing mess. Face it, please. Moles are not a coherent genetic group even within the Soricomorpha. Your approach, although understandable and admirable, results in a mess. Each of these scientific classifications should have their own articles, and the simple English word “mole” should have one as well. Please try to see my point and the wisdom of accepting the fact the English word “mole” does not line up with the genetic groupings and should not have to, and that should be the main purpose of any article called “mole (animal)”. Chrisrus (talk) 00:09, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Chrisrus, please don't put words into my mouth. I never said that the word "mole" corresponded to a single coherent genetic group. Please try to understand that this is how other articles of similar stature have been constructed. Yes, there is (or should be) an article for each taxonomic ranking. - UtherSRG (talk) 21:54, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

First, while you never actually said the words “the word “mole” corresponds to a single coherent genetic group”, you have said that in order to be a mole, a species has to be in a particular coherent genetic group, the Talpidae. If this is not your position, I’m sorry, but it certainly seemed to be.

Second, with regard to “Please try to……constructed”, that’s only true because it usually works, because English words like “giraffe” do correspond to one group. It’s just that, in the case of moles, it doesn’t work. Moles (gestalt of features definition) are probably unique in having this problem.

Third, I’m happy that you agree that each of these zoological terms should have it’s own article. Note, however, that there is no term that contains all the “true moles” and just the “true moles“, so the word “true mole” would also have to have it’s own article. All I ask is that I be allowed to have an article about moles in general. There are important, interesting and worthy things to be said about moles in general, and if it doesn’t fit in with that particular system of articles, then so be it, leave it outside that system. It’s not my fault that this is the reality of moles. Chrisrus (talk) 00:09, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Warning

Here is the official warning, no more reverts until the discussion is completed. David D. (Talk) 21:37, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I feel like it might be completed. Chrisrus (talk) 04:50, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Guess I was wrong. No more non-minor edits for now, I suppose. Chrisrus (talk) 18:00, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Clarifications

OK, I just looked at the disambiguation page at the list of other animals called moles. Chrisrus, how many of those animals are you planning to cover in your preferred umbrella article for mole? To UtherSRG should this possibly be named True mole? Do we have any other precedent for a situation where a common name pops up all over in unrelated animals? Possibly Squirrel? or Bear? David D. (Talk) 21:51, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

To answer your question, my definition is in the intro to the article if we would let it stand a bit so we can talk about it and stop undoing everything I have done. This is the normal definition, as for example dictionary.com says “any of various small insectivorous mammals, esp. of the family Talpidae, living chiefly underground, and having velvety fur, very small eyes, and strong forefeet". Note that I agree with the word “especially” but it does not say “exclusively”. As you know the question of what a mole is has become somewhat of a problem recently; what I am saying is that there is a very specific meaning to the word in the English language, which I would like to call the gestalt of features definition. If you want to have another article called “true moles”, that is an acceptable solution. There are many important, interesting and worthy things to say about moles as a form of an animal, and doing so does not interfere with there being articles about each zoological group with a name. It's a separate phenomenon.Chrisrus (talk) 00:09, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

To answer your question in another way, only the Marsupial Mole and the Golden Mole. By the same rules of noun phrase English syntax that tell you that chocolate milk is a kind of milk and milk chocolate is a kind of chocolate, we can easily know that mole salamanders and mole crickets and mole-rats and so on are not types of moles, but types of salamanders or whatever.Chrisrus (talk) 05:16, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

There are precedents. Plenty enough of them. As far as I know, any critter with the word "mole" in its name that isn't in Talpidae has a larger name for the group, such as golden mole. Perhaps this article could be moved to "true mole" (which links back to this article anyway). Doing so would make Chrisrus' edits even more superfluous. - UtherSRG (talk) 21:58, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm a little confused about the planned difference between the articles Talpidae and mole in the overall big picture? David D. (Talk) 02:13, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

It is interesting that you should ask this question, because answering this and other similar questions is one of the points about having an article about all moles (where I was going with the article in the first place.) Please read the article again and see the extent to which it, I succeed in answering this question. Chrisrus (talk) 04:49, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

This is something we should get straight here on the talk page, so we can be sure that we agree on the facts.

According to my reading of this page: http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/classification/Talpidae.html#Talpidae, it works like this:

1. “Soricomorphs“ includes moles, shrews, desmans, shrew-moles, shrew-like moles, and several other such creatures.

2. The Talpidae are one branch of the above, leaving the shrews and some, but not all, other non-moles behind. The Talpidae moves on, filled with moles, desmans, and shrew-moles, but no shrews or other such critters.

3. The Talpidae then branches into three subfamilies, two of which contain moles and close relatives, and one of which branches off into Chinese shrew-moles and which we need not follow any further to find moles.

4. Of the two remaining branches of Talpidae, one contains nothing but undisputed, %100 agreed on moles and nothing else. This branching is at a level called “subfamily”, and are called “Scalopinae”. Here, for our purposes, this branch ends. Make a note, Scalopinae are all “true moles” but not vise-versa, as we shall see below.

5. The other remaining branch of Talpidae has the unfortunate name “Talpinae”. Notice the one-letter difference! It contains moles and non-moles, so we follow this branch further.

6. Talpinae branches a bit confusingly here: one branch at the Genus level and five at the Tribe level. The one at the genus level contains nothing but undisputed moles, so we stop there and collect the “Nesoscaptor” or “Senkaku moles” and dead end.

7. Of the five remaining branches, one contains desmans and no moles, and two contain only shrew-moles. We don’t go down either path.

8. Of the two tribes that remain, one represents just the Long-Tail Mole, and stops. It’s called the “Scaptonchini tribe”, a tribe of one, it would seem. The other tribe contains the Old Word Moles, and is called the Talpini Tribe, note the word, again, so close. This contains the remaining five different genera.

Conclusions:

1. “Talpidae” =/= “mole”.

2. The statement “Most of the Talpidae are moles,” seems to be true at least in terms of species, if not individuals, but also seems to understate the complexity of the situation.

3. “True moles” = Talpidae moles.

4. There is nowhere to be found, in any of this, any good word that is a synonym for the word “mole“ or "true mole"! That is to say, none of these groupings contain all the "true moles" and only "true moles." i.e.: Science, it would seem, has at the moment no single word for “mole!” I.e.: “Mole” is not a scientific term that fits into modern taxonomy, for complicated but perfectly understandable reasons: these terms all refer to how these animals are related, not what type of animal they are in terms of body plan, which usually isn’t a problem because that's not the case with words like "giraffe", but which is true in the this case of moles.

5. Therefore, at least to my mind, it seems obvious that an article on moles should exist in order to make all of this clear, and which should use a dictionary definition based the gestalt of features.

6. This definition is used within the common English names of the Talpidae. This fact belies how we all seem to perceive what a mole is and what is not quite a mole but rather a desman or a shrew-mole or something; this is the definition also within the Talpidae to define "true mole" as distinguished from other Talpidae.

Chrisrus (talk) 04:49, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree whole-heartedly with Chrisrus. People (who are very often non-scientists, much less zoologists) need to have the full panoply of knowledge laid out before them, ideally in fairly lay language (which is not to say poorly written). The same confusion of scientific names and so-called "common names" takes place often in botany, in spite of the aims of Linnaeus.
My perspective is from that of possibly the largest portion of people who read Wikipedia's science-related articles; the curious amateur (another big group are pre-college level students).
WP needs good writing/editing to make information more accessible, not more confusing - which is quite a trick for many complex subjects.
Personally, I think some of the elements of the arguments made here could be incorporated into the Mole article as both sides are striving so mightily for clarity. Although there are many edifying articles on Wikipedia, I wish more of them were as well written as the arguments made in disputes such as this. Hamamelis (talk) 18:56, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I quite disagree with the inclusion of other kinds of mole in this article. The name "mole" is used for Marsupial moles and (it appears) Golden moles because European settlers used the old European names for new species. This does not, however, justify chucking all the so-called "moles" into one single article.

European settlers called the koala a "koala bear". Does this mean that koalas should be subsumed under the article on bears? Similarly, should the thycaline (Tasmanian wolf) be included in the article on wolf?

The term "magpie" refers to various members of the Corvidae, notably Pica pica. In Australia, European settlers gave the name "magpie" to Cracticus tibicen, a local species belonging to the Artamidae. I believe it would be quite confusing to have a single article covering both groups of birds on the grounds that they all happen to be called "magpies". Wikipedia quite rightly has separate articles on Magpie and Australian Magpie.

Similarly, if you look up robin, you don't get a long and confusing article on the different kinds of bird referred to as "robins" around the world. Instead you get a disambiguation page directing you to five different articles (if referring to birds only -- more if you include other senses).

Despite popular usage of words like "mole", I would suggest that Wikipedia should concentrate on being an encyclopaedia rather than a dictionary. What I mean by that is that it should be organised in terms of knowledge (with moles strictly referring to certain members of the Talpidae) rather than in terms of words (wherein "moles" refers to a group of unrelated animals that just happen to have been stuck with the same name). It is a disservice to the general reader to lump different types of animal together in a confusing manner instead of making it clear that they are in fact quite distinct.

On these grounds, I would suggest that this article should deal with the True Moles, with links referring readers to other pages on Golden moles and Marsupial moles for further information on those animals.

Bathrobe (talk) 10:38, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for contributing.

If it should turn out that an article can be written describing a unique gestalt of features that describes all creatures called “magpies” and only creatures called “magpies”, I would support the creation of an article about this distinct, existent phenomenon. Otherwise, it’s a false analogy, because the word “magpie”, unlike the word “mole”, would not refer to an existent phenomenon of nature, but to a simple coincidence of nomenclature not referring to a single, distinct phenomenon.

By the same token, even if magpies didn’t share that name, if they did have a unique gestalt of features to define a distinct “magpieness” existing in nature, such an article could point out that there are two birds in the world that share an otherwise unique set of features, and maybe explain why this would be and any significance this might have. This could be a good article even if they didn’t share a name.

An article about giant flightless running birds, for example, would be a better analogy. ostriches, rheas, emus, and moas are not at all related, but even so, if a good article could be written about giant flightless running birds, (I’m not saying it hastn’t) it should be on Wikipedia (not saying it isn’t). If you would not object to such an article, other than to insist that their unrelatedness be made clear, than you should not object to an umbrella article about moles.

This article is not actually about “animals English-peaking people call “moles”” exactly per se, but rather about a form natural selection seemingly creates whenever a mammalian insectivore takes up burrowing for a living, and it is this fact which makes writing it a worthwhile endevor. Chrisrus (talk) 07:24, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I strongly support the Bathrobe approach. The nonsense that is likely to result from attempting to hold together an article on all mole-like animals and so-called moles is illustrated by the circular logic in a sentence that starts "The complete list of animals with the features of a mole..." (just added to the article). This is meaningless. The article is in danger of having no clear foundation, and of ending up as a rag-bag of ill-defined and undefinable ideas of "moleness". The only way to go is to start by clearly defining moles as Talpidae, and then to describe them. Relegate all the so-called moles to the dismabiguation page. SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 07:45, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, and which is how it was before Chrisrus touched this article. - UtherSRG (talk) 13:50, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I've been following this discussion, and there have been interesting and useful points made. I had been thinking that "mole" was like "flightless bird", "tree" or "nut" – a clear biological group of "things" which are not necessarily related. However, this purely ecological definition would lead to rather different creatures such as golden moles and marsupial moles being included with what I can't help calling "true moles", which are all related. I wonder therefore if "mole" is more like "moth"? Moths are all the Lepidoptera, not necessarily closely related, but not including those distinct enough to be called something else, in that case "butterfly". Similarly monkeys are all the higher primates apart from the apes, and wasps are those stinging Hymenoptera that are not bees or ants. We could similarly define "mole" for this article as something like: "all members of the Talpidae which are not desmans or shrew-moles". This does also have a difficulty, which is that it would have a great deal of overlap with Talpidae itself. I therefore suggest two alternative options:

• Two articles: Talpidae and Mole-like animals. The latter would include moles, golden moles, marsupial moles and perhaps some others. Mole (disambiguation) would move to Mole.
• Two articles: Talpidae and Mole. The latter would contain all the Talpidae apart from non-moles. Other mole-like creatures would stay in their respective articles, linked from Mole (disambiguation).

I don't think we can have an article called Mole which covers both true moles and non-Talpidae moles, and I don't think there is room for articles on both "true moles" and "other mole-like creatures". I think the question we have to answer is which is more important, genetic relatedness or ecological niche and physical structure? Does the latter deserve an article? Richard New Forest (talk) 14:10, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

What we need to do, then, is to revert to something like this version, and work from there. It is not perfect, but it's a lot better than the present confused mess. SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 19:08, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

(I wasn't suggesting only one option – you are talking about my second option. The other thing we could do is change the name of the current article: my first option.) Richard New Forest (talk 07:23, 6 June 2009 (UTC))

I'm sorry you think the article is "a confused mess". I've been trying to improve it lately, and there is more I'd like to do to speak more about each feature that makes a mole a mole and not a something else; how and why nature has created moles to be what they are, and what is known about them in general, if you or anyone else would like to help. I strongly disagree that an article explaining what makes a mole a mole and why they evolved and re-evolved separately has necessarily to be a mess no matter how it is done or written. Chrisrus (talk) 20:26, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I would also like to add that, if articles like true mole or Talpidae are confusing messes at times because that's at least partly because because nature isn't always cut-and-dried and not just the fault of the authors.

Finally, it is interesting that you should choose that old version of the article (to which, at the time, as I recall, one was directed to by searching for either "mole" or "talpidae", giving the impression that these were synomyms) including as it does a section on the evolution of moles consisting primarily of a lengthy quotation from Charles Darwin himself in which he used the Tuco-Tuco and the moles to make just the point about nature re-evolving the same things more than once that I am trying to make in this article. Apparently, Darwin was unaware of the Golden and Marsupial Moles, but even without these clearly better examples of this principle available to him, he was able to see this very point and found it well worth making. Chrisrus (talk) 20:26, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if you will all agree to the following:

1. Animals with this one set of features exist, even if unrelated.

2. The gestalt of these features makes them all quite the same as each other and quite different from all others.

3. This is true not because they are related, but rather because natural selection created the same thing repeatedly for understandable reasons.

4. There should be an appropriate place expain this on Wikipedia. Chrisrus (talk) 20:26, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I do think that this is an option, as I said above, and that is roughly what the article is at the moment. However, if we are to have such an article, I don't think "mole" is the right name for it. If we are to have it, it should be called something like "mole-like animals". What do you think about my comments above? Richard New Forest (talk) 07:23, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Geez, I donno, "mole-like animal"? That's pretty vague. Who's to say what "mole-like" entails? I can think of at least seven animals right off the top of my head that are arguably mole-like. I was just talking about moles as They've always been defined, minus the new requirement that they belong to be part of one coherent genetic group. That sounds pretty problematic to me. Chrisrus (talk) 05:15, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

That is precisely the problem! You ask 'Who's to say what "mole-like" entails?' - yet you insert phrases into the article like 'The complete list of animals with the features which define the word "mole" ...' In its present state the article is a mess, trying on the one hand to encompass all 'mole-like' animals but on the other written from a perspective of not knowing what that means. SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 07:25, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

We all know what moles are; moles are small mammalian insectavores with short dense fur with cylindrical bodies covered in fur, with small or invisible eyes and ears, heads and feet with seem to sprout out of the side of their bodies; large, powerful fossorial paws with long digging claws, etc. This is the definition you will use when you clarify what is and isn't a True Mole within the Talpidae, there's no escaping it. (Someone should really go do that, the "classification" sections within those two are still not clear.) When I said "features which define the word "mole", I was trying to avoid repeating all that as it had just been detailed. Maybe it should all be repeated, though, you have a point. Chrisrus (talk) 15:14, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

What does "mole-like animal" mean? "Mole-like" in what way? Chrisrus (talk) 15:14, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

A similar problem occurs at vultures, which covers both Old World vultures and New World vultures in one article. The article starts out by defining vultures as "scavenging birds, feeding mostly on the carcasses of dead animals." Scavenging is not, however, sufficient to define vultures. As [texnat.tamu.edu/ranchref/predator//birds/t-birds.htm] points out, "Vultures, ravens, crows, magpies and some gulls commonly scavenge carcasses." But despite the fact that "vulture" has not been satisfactorily defined, the second sentence in the article goes on to say that "Vultures are found on every continent except Antarctica and Oceania." It continues by noting that "A particular characteristic of many vultures is a bald head, devoid of feathers" -- although that doesn't appear to be a defining characteristic of "vultureness", since several photos show vultures without bald heads.

The introductory section continues with some comments on the name for a collection of vultures (kettle or venue), and a note that the German word Geier doesn't have a precise meaning in ornithology. The fact that "vulture" doesn't have a precise meaning in ornithology, either, only emerges in the section on "Classification", where we learn that "Vultures are classified into two groups: Old World vultures and New World vultures. The similarities between the two different groups are due to convergent evolution."

The remainder of the article deals with a number of issues, ecological and cultural, related to vultures, all of which appear to refer only to the Old World vultures. Even the section on Feeding appears to refer mainly to the Old World vultures -- although one can't be sure, because the article doesn't make clear exactly what kind of vulture is being referred to at each instance.

The Vulture article is a good example of the kind of fuzziness that occurs when content is dictated by ordinary-language terminology. Because it accepts the layman's use of the term "vulture", taking for granted the "gestalt" of features that make a "vulture", and fails to clearly define the term at the outset, the article ends up as a ragbag collection of facts, half-facts, and factoids. Even where different species occupy similar niches, it's hard to make blanket statements about them. For example, see the section on Classification of vultures, where we learn that Old World vultures find carcasses exclusively by sight whereas several species of New World vulture use their keen sense of smell to smell the dead from great heights.

I think it's fair to say that this kind of problem is a common one in the natural world, because ordinary perceptions don't always match the biological relationships. I can see the problem that Chrisus is referring to. If we use "mole" as a synonym for Talpidae, we get that problem that the Talpidae includes more than moles. If we use "mole" as used in human speech to refer to near-blind burrowing animals, then the term comes to cover a number of totally unrelated but evolutionary convergent species. Chrisus prefers the latter approach.

However, I think the "Vultures" (evolutionary convergence = common term) approach is fundamentally flawed. An alternative approach can be seen at articles on gliding animals: Flying_squirrel, Colugos, Petauridae (gliding possums), Anomaluridae (scaly-tailed squirrels), and Sugar Glider. These all get their own article. They are also briefly covered in the section on flying mammals at the very large article on Flying and gliding animals. The main difference between these flying mammals, which all seem to share a similar "gestalt", and the different kinds of mole is that there isn't one single English-language term that covers all of them. That's the only reason there isn't an article about them along the lines of "Mole" (as proposed by Chrisus).

Bathrobe (talk) 12:23, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree (again). This article, like the one on vultures, is a mixture of (a) attempts to define and describe animals that have "moleness", but this is fundamentally flawed because it is based on an OR description in the first sentence, and (b) specific points about Talpidae moles, mostly the European mole - e.g. the stuff about molehills, earthworms, collective nouns etc. It is very unclear which points describe all mole-like animals as (ill-)defined in the opening sentence, and which relate only to specific members of Talpidae. An article on mole needs to be based firmly on taxonomic principles, and to start with a statement about which taxonomic groups are included in the "moles". Yes, there is room for (and indeed a need for) material about convergent evolution, but that should be a subsidiary section in this article. If there is a need for an article on the convergence of several unrelated animals towards moleness, by all means let's have one, but make it a separate article, or refer to it in a page that functions largely as a disambiguation page for "mole". Or possibly as part of an article on burrowing animals. No, I am not suggesting Moleness as the title of a possible new article! SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 18:44, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Could go into an article about moles in general, let me know if I'm wrong or if you disagree:

1. Smallish Mammals

2. Tiny or no eyes, covered or vestigial, nearly blind

3. Tiny or no visible ears

4. Limbs invisible, withdrawn into body, large muscles lever internal limb bones

5. Paws face out to the sides and face backwards.

6. Bigger front paws and inner limbs than rear

7. Very short necks surrounded with limb muscles, (invisible necks)

8. Cylindrical bodies

9. Insectivorous

10. Voracious

11. Creates elaborate burrows and chambers wherever possible

12. Disrupt plant roots

13. Feed on plant root-eating grubs

14. Methods of eradication/removal

15. Methods of living with them

16. Solitary/cantankerous

17. Active day and night

Don't all of these things apply equally well to Golden and Marsupial Moles? How long would the list of things be

What things can we say about only about Talpidae moles that cannot be said about the others?

1. Certain invisable aspects of internal structure? (Who knows??)

2. Reproduction, at least in the case of Marsupial moles.

3. Talpidae moles dig, and are built to dig, with just the two paws.

4. Marsupial and Golden moles dig, and are built to dig, with the two front paws in tandam with those shovel-noses.

5. Many things I'm missing that you know about?

It seems an article on moles in genearal would have quite a bit to say, unlike an ideal article on Vultures in general, it seems, which, at least to my mind, should list those things that are true of all vultures and then re-direct to New World and Old World. Either that or, should it turn out that the list is too small, not even exist, or probably better yet just explain the history of the word. This is why I believe that the Vulture article is not a very good analogy: There is not enough to say about all vultures, the two groups just don't have nearly as much in common; they are barely the same in comparison. 05:54, 8 June 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chrisrus (talk • contribs)

Those are really all the points you made before. You are describing what I agree is a useful article: the one I would call "mole-like animals". What's wrong with calling it that? It's clear what it means, and covers a "real" biological type. As to what "mole-like animal" means, surely it means animals like moles: with similar adaptations, diet and lifestyle to moles – exactly your definition.

That still leaves what the article called "mole" would cover, and at the moment it covers lots of non-moles simply because they're talpidae, and no Golden moles simply because they aren't. That's what I was concerned with, not whether there can be an article about mole-like animals, I have no objection, but there has to be an article called Mole and it shouldn't include any armadillos, no matter how moleish. Pink fairy armadillo and Desmans, no matter how "molish" they are. I never set out to write an article on mole-like articles, I don't object, but that's not the point, there has to be an article on moles and it should cover all moles, I say, but I can see I'm going to lose.

"Mole" is not clear as a title for your definition, because it could mean so many different things. I still think that my options above are the only two, and I haven't yet seen any good arguments against that. Richard New Forest (talk) 09:10, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

You say ""Mole is not clar as a title for my definition, because it could mean so many different things".

I'm exaspirated. How exactly is this: "mammals with cylindrical body covered in velvet fur with small or invisible eyes and ears, no visible neck, very short limbs and large, powerful fossorial paws with long digging claws, burrows underground, where they hunt small invertebrates and build elaborate tunnels and chambers," how in the world is "mole" not clear title for that definition? Being related to something isn't what makes a mole a mole. These things are what makes a mole a mole. If you think that's just my opionion or my orginal research synthesis, go try disambiguating the moles from the not-moles in the articles True Mole or Talpidae without it. Can't be done.

Now, "most of the Talpidae" now, there's an unclear definition of mole. Gestalt of features is what makes a mole a mole. This is not only true, you will notice, of Moles, but also of practically anything you run into on a daily basis: lamp, tree, grass, brick, house, road, person, bird, star, planet, you name it.

I can't understand how things that are mammals with cylindrical bodies covered in fur, with small or invisible eyes and ears, no visible necks, very short limbs and large, powerful fossorial paws blah blah blah isn't a mole simply because it's not related to the Talpidae, nearly half or which aren't even moles.

I give up, I surrender. I quit, you win I lose. Just before I go, let me ask you this: What makes things what they are, anyway? If it turned out that the Masai Giraffe were unrelated to the other giraffes, would it still be a giraffe?

I will feel I have not wasted my time if all non-moles are removed from the article. Chrisrus (talk) 01:00, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Just curious: What would you do with quail, buttonquail, and New World quail?

Bathrobe (talk) 05:04, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Reverted this article and related articles back to how they were before Chrisrus' edits. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:40, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

An aside

i note this was moved from mole (animal) in oct 2008 and very few of the pipelinks in other articles were fixed. Prior to that was mole used in the chemitry sense here a there seem to be quite a few chemistry articles pointing here. This is not really addressing the dispute above but given the common duel use of mole in biology maybe this page should be a redirect to mole (disambiguation)? Then this article could either move back to Mole (animal) or to True mole or similar. David D. (Talk) 22:19, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Thanks for the help disambiguating! Chrisrus (talk) 00:11, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Moles in popular culture?

It makes sense not to weigh this article down with a long list, or any largish subset of the members of the "List of moles in fiction" or "Moles in popular culture" lists. But if we're only going to list one or two, why Redwall rather than Mole from The Wind in the Willows? It would probably make sense, actually, just to remove the paragraph about Redwall and move the links to the See Also section. --Jim Henry (talk) 21:00, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I think you should please feel free to add a short bit about the mole from "the Wind in the Willows" if you know about it. It may be the most famous mole in the English-speaking world, but I think there was a cartoon character mole from Czechoslavakia that was a kind of like the Mikey Mouse of the Communist Block. If so, it may be the most famous mole character in the world, and should be (briefly) noted if anyone knows about it and can do so.

I think there were more items in that list, but may have gotten lost in the recent hubbub. If so, I'm sorry about that. Chrisrus (talk) 02:15, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Non-moles in this article.

I agree that desmans are not moles. Why they are in this article? Also, how sure are you that all of these shrew-moles are moles? Some are intermediate forms that are not fully moles. Chrisrus (talk) 04:57, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Everyone, quick question, please if you could:

Are all Shrew-moles moles?

Yes, no, not sure, don't know? Chrisrus (talk) 01:29, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll go first: yes Chrisrus (talk) 01:32, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Predators

Would be nice if someone would list common species of predators to moles and a picture or design of mole-traps. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.115.41.217 (talk) 02:28, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Non-moles

Richard, first, if you want to "Limit other animals to those with significant convergent features other than simply an underground lifestyle, and limit info to their similarities to moles." then why, did you "Restore lost mole crickets."?

Second, please explain yourself further. I may be able to satisfy your objections in another way. Chrisrus (talk) 14:16, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

The article is primarily about moles, not mole rats or mole crickets. Therefore we can only mention these in relation to moles. Mole rats, mole skinks and many others of the "mole"-named animals are really only similar in that they burrow: their physical similarities are relatively minor. Details of their lifestyles, diet etc are irrelevant here – that material belongs in their own articles. Arguably this also applies to golden moles and marsupial moles, whose striking similarity is more to each other than to moles proper. Not really sure about these at the moment.

Your compromise edit answers these points quite well (though you do need to restore the "fact" tag which was lost along the way, or ref the point). I think mole crickets deserve a bit more mention, because of their great similarity despite a very different body plan – and perhaps also some others on the same basis. Richard New Forest (talk) 14:57, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I understand. The problem is at the disambiguation page they don't want too much information about helping readers distinguish between creatures called moles as they expect this article to do so. That's why they recently put the note at the top. This is why we are supposed to briefly explain some simple way to distinguish between not the goldens and marsupials but the two of them vs. the true moles. I added back the mole rats, mole crickets and mole crabs as they are the only ones I could find in which the word "mole" is used to mean "mole-like" in any way other than simply but "subterranian". I actually don't think it is necessay, though, as if you call something a "mole something", you aren't calling it a mole, but if you call something a "something mole", you are calling it a mole. This is the same rule of Enlgish syntax that tells you that "chocolate milk" is a kind of milk but "milk chocolate" is a kind of chocolate. So to my mind, this article should limit itself to talking about those animals which English-speaking people actually call moles, and so far those are only the true moles, the goldens, and the marsupials. Please look at this http://www.andrewisles.com/AndrewIsles/images/product_images/BMImg_26176_26176_Moles_web.jpg. Chrisrus (talk) 15:14, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

You are right that there's a difficulty between having no encyclopaedic info on dab pages, and keeping to the topic on article pages. We do need to remember that this page is primarily about moles, not the various other animals. If we really need an article about mole-like animals, then (as I said before) we should have one, with a suitable title.

We also need to be careful about "animals which English-speaking people actually call moles". Remember that Wikipedia is not a dictionary, so we are writing about things irrespective of the names they happen to be called – it's the mole-like adaptations we're interested in here, not the word "mole". It should be possible to translate any WP article into any other language without changing its subject or content.

I follow your argument about syntax, but while it works as a general guide this rule is by no means reliable in English. A sea horse is not a kind of horse, a mountain ash is not a kind of ash, a rock cod is not a kind of cod, dead-men's fingers and ladies' fingers are not fingers, an American Robin is not a kind of robin, and of course a Bombay duck is not a duck. I therefore don't agree that by calling something a "golden mole" you are necessarily calling it a mole as such – and even if you were, it would not necessarily be relevant for this article.Richard New Forest (talk) 21:25, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

The reason the article American Robin sees it as it's job to clarify that it's not a true robin lies in the fact that we do call it a robin, so a reader might think it is a robin. If it were called a robin wren, it might not be as necessary, as the animal is being called a wren. If you already have heard of Eagle rays, imagine you hadn't. Would you need to be told that they are not really eagles? Not likely. Would you need to be told if they weren't (they are) truely rays? You probably would. See what I mean? My point was if we are suppsed to do this here, we only really have to do the animals that seem to be called moles, not the ones that don't seem to be called moles. If there were an eagle duck that wasn't a duck, it'd need to be distinguished form the true ducks, but not necessarily form the eagles. I donno if there really is a duck eagle, we'll see if this link turns blue. If it does exist and it's not an eagle, there's some explaining in order, but not if it's not a true duck.

So we don't have to distinguish between every animal called a mole something, and there are many of these, they are collected on the talk page for the disambiguation page for the word "mole", please have a look. But we might have to distinguish animals called a somehting mole. There are, as far as we know, four of these, marsupials, goldens, shrew-moles, and duck moles. Shrew-moles we've got in other places and are considered true moles because they're talpidae, even though they are intermediate form between a shrew and a mole and maybe not fully moles but on balance moles and mostly they get a pass because they are Talpidae. A duck-mole is a very apt name for a platapus which, to my mind unfortunately, is not commonly used and so we ignore it mostly because so far no one cares and we're not looking for trouble. That's why we only have to do the goldens and the marsupials and not the mole-rats or mole crickets and I think we shouldn't bother with them but you said no, they are good for making the point about convergent evolution, and the disambiguation page guys said they wanted mole-rats in too, so I consented and tried write it in such a way that your point came through clearly and I even added the mole crab because it's almost as moley as the mole cricket and I thought it would help make your point. And his was sastisfied, the disambig guy insisted on the mole-rat. But no more please, if you are watching, someone comes by every now and then and adds in the mole snakes and mole lobsters and mole lizards and they are not needed and here we go again.

About your idea about the article on mole-like animals, I'm interested, but because I don't think it's going to happen, I'd say that what I think should really happen is this: If a South African has trouble with what he calls "moles" on his property and wants to learn more about them, he might go to Wikipedia and type in "mole" in the search engine. Then, instead of being sent here, like it is now, he'd be sent to the disambiguation page where it would clearly says right now "mole, if you're in N.America/Eurasia", "mole, if your're in Africa", "mole, if you're in Australia". Then we wouldn't need this section at all, we could make your point up in the Evolution section where Darwin is being quoted now. What do you say, are you with me, Richard? Chrisrus (talk) 00:53, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

All that is really discussion about disambiguation, not about Talpidae moles, which is the subject of this article. If a South African really would call a golden mole just "mole", then Mole (disambiguation) is the proper place for that – and it needs no more than a link to the article about that animal. There is no real reason for info about golden moles in an article about Talpidae moles. Similarly, no-one looking for info on mole-rats, mole crabs or mole snakes will type simply "mole", so we don't need to bother with those in either the dab page or here. What is of interest here is the convergent evolution element, and a few good examples of those will do. Any further information on convergent evolution can go in Convergent evolution, or in a new article about mole-like animals.Richard New Forest (talk) 09:52, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

See below for a related discussion on disambiguating Mole. I think one of the main purposes of having a section on Similar animals is to provide information for people who are really seeking the Golden or Marsupial mole but wouldn't think to go to the dab page. If Mole became Mole (disambiguation) and this article were moved to True mole or even back to Mole (animal), the information in the Similar animals section seems like it would fit better in a discussion of convergent evolution within the Evolution section, possibly in a condensed form. --Zach425 ^talk/contribs 12:10, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed.

Purpose of non-moles in this article

Information about the non-moles has served more than one purpose in the article.

A: One of these is disambiguation, an onus on the article placed on it by policies and practices of disambiguation pages, namely that only the most basic information should be placed there, while the details of the situation be the job of the articles to which disambig pages link.

B: Another is to show how moles played a significant role in the history of Biology. Darwin, on his Voyage of the Beagle, stopped in South America and met the Tuco-Tuco, remembered the mole, and figured out something important.

C: Another is to speak of the word "mole" as not a technical term, but as a common word that unifies unrelated animals.

My purpose in starting this sub-section on this talk page is to discuss improving ways of improving the way this article does these three things. Should they be combined into one section? Should one or more of the purposes be removed, and perhaps dealt with in other articles? Or something else? As it reads now, the cohesiveness of the article as a whole seem to leave something to be desired.

My thoughts on the points

A), On the one hand, new solutions could be found that could lift this burden from the article completely, which would make A) only optional. If it is good information, however, a place on Wikipedia should be found for it.

B) This might not be necessary for this article, but discussing notable roles of moles in science is a good goal. The purpose of this information should be made clear with explicit introductory clauses or heading, if it is retained, because as it is now, the reader might miss the point. I don't think it should be the only thing in the Evolution section, because that section is normally used to discuss how animals evolved, not their place in the history of Evolutionary Biology. Chrisrus (talk) 18:26, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

C) This runs the danger of dragging us back into old arguments which I lost, far above, that "mole" is actually not a technical term and therefore this article should be about what the word "mole" means. This might be best dealt with in a "terminology" section.

What are your thoughts? Chrisrus (talk) 18:26, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I see the following as possible solutions to the points you've raised:

A) The dab page that will be moved to Mole will certainly help provide clarification to readers, especially if we structure it so that the three types of "mole" are included in one section with their geographic information. Also, I would suggest amending the hatnote on this article to something like {{about|moles of the family Talpidae|moles from southern Africa and Australia, or for other uses of mole}}.

This article is about moles of the family Talpidae. For moles from southern Africa and Australia, or for other uses of mole, see Mole (animal) (disambiguation).

B) I still think this would be best incorporated into the section that is currently titled Evolution. Perhaps it could be re-named Natural History, with sub-sections of Evolution, Convergent Evolution, and Role in Natural History. These are just rough titles, certainly up for discussion.

C) With the dab page moved to Mole, the hatnote, and the proposed Convergent Evolution section, I think this article will have sufficient information about different types of "moles" - especially if Convergent Evolution explicitly discusses why the Golden and Marsupial are named mole. (Unfortunately, I don't know enough about the animals to comment on mole as a technical term vs. a broader group of taxa.) Perhaps the Golden and Marsupial articles would be good places to go into more detail about their similarities and differences to true moles. --Zach425 ^talk/contribs 21:52, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Disambiguation of Mole

The above discussion regarding the inclusion of non-Talpidae moles in this article seems to me to be of most relevance in an international context. As Chrisrus has pointed out several times, this article defines moles as being within Talpidae, despite the fact that what is considered a mole in southern Africa and Australia is actually a Golden mole or Marsupial mole. To preserve the international relevance of Wikipedia, to temper the arguments in favor of adding non-Talpidae species to this article, and to appease those who favor Chemistry (and thus Mole (unit)) or dermatology (and thus Mole (skin marking) over Zoology, I move that we move this article to True mole—or in the face of opposition to that move, back to Mole (animal). Then the dab page could be moved to Mole.

This change has been suggested before by David D. and others, but it seems not to have been acted on despite little resistance. Unless sufficient arguments against such a move arise within the next couple weeks, I will enact these changes. --Zach425 ^talk/contribs 12:10, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I see "move this back to Mole (animal). Then the dab page could be moved to Mole." as the solution. It's all set to go. Send everyone directly to the Disambiguation page, it's best all around. Chrisrus (talk) 14:15, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

All that is needed is a sentence explaining the existence of non-Talpidae burrowing and digging animals that have been called moles. This is a perfectly good article and a good example of the appropriate use of primary subject disambiguation. --TS 16:23, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Before we have any more discussion on this point, can we have some evidence that "mole" without an epithet is indeed used for those animals? I've tagged the point, but no ref yet. Until then Talpidae moles appear to be the primary meaning. Richard New Forest (talk) 17:12, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

This is all we can and should say about them really. I've placed a sentence in the lede referring to these unrelated animals. --TS 17:31, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I see what you mean. I've altered the wording so that it now reads:

"Two groups of these have common names identifying them as moles although they are not moles or even related to true moles of the Talpidae."

Richard, are you assuming that, for example, a South African with "moles" in his backyard knows to add the word "golden" in the search? We can assume he'll call them "moles" if he speaks English enough to attempt a search. Just because an English-speaking person who wants to know about the "moles" (common meaning: cylindrical bodied furry digging mammel with small or covered eyes, tiny ears, big paws that seem to sprout from the neck, etc. etc., right on down the line, practically everything that "mole" means in English) will always know enough to add the word "golden" to his search because he's in South Africa? You can assume a person knows the word "mole" as a common, not a technical term, because we assume he speaks English. You can't assume he knows to add "golden". Richard, why are you insisting that we can cite a fact that can assume? Enlgish-speaking people do call such animals "moles" and untill they learn otherwise it's safe to assume that plenty will think of them as moles.

Richard, for example:

"Though Malagasy Mongooses are commonly called mongooses and thought to be mongooses {cite fact} (blah blah go on to say that are not mongooses because they don't belong to the mongoose group but to the Malagasy Carnivore group, imagine this fact is cited)"

I don't have to cite the fact of the first clause, though I do the second, see Rich? The fact that Malagassy Mongooses have that name is proof enough that they are called mongooses. The fact that they are basically the same type of thing as a mongoose (i.e.: it's not a "sea horse" kind of analogy reason that they are called mongooses) is proof enough that common people think of them as mongooses. Only the second clause has to be cited. See what I mean? Chrisrus (talk) 18:52, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

No, we can't assume what a South African might call golden moles, any more than we can assume any other fact. For all we know English-speaking South Africans use a completely different name (perhaps derived from Zulu or Afrikaans), or maybe they are not generally known to English-speaking South Africans at all (as their habitats don't seem to include gardens or agricultural land). We can only go on what is published in reliable sources. Your guess is very plausible, but so are many things which turn out to be wrong – and that's exactly why WP has cites in the first place. Richard New Forest (talk) 20:54, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly with Richard that it would help to establish that the Golden and Marsupial are referred to without epithets in their homelands. However, finding a source that fits into WP:RS to back up how moles are treated in the vernacular will be difficult if not impossible. This is especially true for the Marsupial, which appears to be an endangered species not commonly appearing in Australian discourse. For the Golden, I have found South African websites that discuss moles without reference to Golden ([1], [2]) or that say mole in the header but use the more detailed Golden terminology in the body ([3]). While the first two sources would never stand up to WP:RS, I believe they establish terminology used by everyday South Africans.

Some more research into the different Mole pages on Wikipedia has convinced me that regardless of the True vs. Golden vs. Marsupial issue, moving the dab page to Mole is the best course of action. This is based on the following usage statistics from September 2009, the month before Mole (animal) was moved to Mole.

• Mole (unit) = 98,082 hits
• Mole (animal) = 40,666 hits
• Mole (skin marking) = 23,571 hits
• Mole (sauce) = 17,068 hits
• Mole (espionage) = 2,756 hits
• Mole (architecture) = 1,462 hits

This suggests that, while Mole (animal) is a very popular choice of Mole, there is little rationale for Tony's assertion that this article is an appropriate primary subject disambiguation. Also, these usage statistics were not an anomaly - this trend was consistent in 9 of the 10 months leading up to the move. So regardless of whether Australians and South Africans think of Marsupials and Goldens as simply "mole", I feel strongly that Mole should be a dab page. --Zach425 ^talk/contribs 01:00, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Those statistics are very convincing on primary topic disambiguation. I withdraw my argument on that point. There is a good argument for either placing mole (unit) at this location or placing mole (disambiguation) here. --TS 01:08, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

From Dec 2007 to Sept 2008, 46% of the total hits on the six pages above were to the Mole (unit) article, with 27% to Mole (animal), 15% to Mole (skin marking), etc. Since less than 50% of the total hits were to the Mole (unit) article, I think it would be most appropriate for Mole (disambiguation) to appear at Mole. --Zach425 ^talk/contribs 02:08, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. For practical reasons I doubt a primary disambiguation to mole (unit) would stick for long. --TS 02:24, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I am convinced by the arguments above: I think move this article back to Mole (animal) and move the dab to Mole. Richard New Forest (talk) 09:31, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

When words collide

This short essay was posted on my talk page. I've copied it here because I think this is a more relevant location. --TS 00:12, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

"Two groups of these have common names identifying them as moles although they are not moles..." How is this better than: "Two groups of these are commonly called and thought of as moles, though they are not true moles..."

Because they are, of course, moles, in the common sense, based on their obvious features. What makes them not-moles is their unrelatedness, so they only aren't moles in the technical sense. What's important is that their English-speaking observes call them moles because they pass the duck test, so that's what they enter when they search for them "mole" and why they should be sent to the disambuation page first. As it is now, they get the article mole and have to read to the bottom to find out that maybe they're in the wrong place, or look at the tags at the top which don't explain that the continent is the best way to find the one you're looking for if you don't know the complete common or technical names.

Let me ask you this: if it turned out that one of the giraffes had independantly evolved from the others and therefore gets removed from the Girafae, or whatever it's called, is it still a giraffe? Answer, maybe not, as a technical term, but yes, of course, as a non-technical term, because it fits the common defintion of the word. Common terms are what we mostly worry about when helping people find the right article with disambiguaiton pages and redirects. Any distinctions between these are what the article is there to explain.

About the Giraffe, don't laugh, this is exactly what happened with the mongooses in 2006 and is likely to happen again. Check out Whale for example, which deals a similar problem quite well, if I do say so myself. And look at Mistletoe, a perfect example of an English word with a real world refferent that has no taxonomical synonym. Chrisrus (talk) 20:08, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Please note that my version of the article's lede contains the following sentence:

In some parts of the world, there are local burrowing animals that resemble moles: principally the golden mole of Southern Africa and the marsupial mole of Western Australia.

Thus if an "English-speaking observer" calls a golden mole simply "mole" and searches on it, he'll need to read just six short sentences to know what is and isn't a mole, and where to find information about the local animal he calls "mole."

Perhaps more to the point, we haven't yet seen any evidence that the people of Southern Africa or Australia call these animals simply "moles". The results of the google searches I've performed on moles on Australian websites are inconclusive, but suggest that these rare and seldom-seen desert animals are called "marsupial moles" by those who write about them. --TS 00:22, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Those websites are all made by people who already know about Golden moles. They are no evidence somebody who does't and wants to would just look at them and think "Look at that mole". And it doesn't really matter that those countries are English-speaking. My position would be the same if they weren't. Our user is an English-speaking person anywhere. Chrisrus (talk) 01:46, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

The links found by Zach425 (above under #Disambiguation of Mole) show convincingly that South Africans do call golden moles just "mole". While these sites would not be reliable refs for factual information, what we are after here is common usage – these are ads aimed at ordinary people, so they do provide solid evidence for that. As for the marsupial mole, the evidence so far seems to point the other way. I tried a search on "mole" from sites with AU suffix: looking at the first hundred results, marsupial moles always had their epithet – even on a worksheet for young children.

I think non-Australians will rarely talk about them as just "moles", because they will always be contrasting or comparing them with other mole-like animals. Australians themselves consistently seem to call them "marsupial mole" – though often also by an Aboriginal name. Richard New Forest (talk) 09:31, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I stand corrected, yet somehow vindicated at the same time. Chrisrus (talk) 17:26, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

WHAT!?!

Only Giant Moles fur get's that big.

No,no,no! A Mole's fur coat not that big. DellTG5 (talk) 22:44, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

You think maybe they used more than one mole to make it? Chrisrus (talk) 23:35, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

What, specifially, does "a small area" refer to?

In this context, what is the phrase "a small area" likely to elicit in the minds of the reader? A few miles? Chrisrus (talk) 07:49, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. - UtherSRG (talk) 07:55, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Merger

I don't like the merger. There are about as many species of talpids that are not moles as there are moles. - UtherSRG (talk) 03:03, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

...and a couple of "moles" that aren't talpids, too! But as long as these facts are made clear and the article doesn't imply that that "Talpidae" means anything but "the mole family of animals" or unduely conflate the terms "mole" and "Talpidae", it might surprise some to know that I would not oppose a merger. See Squirrel for an example of how this might be done. Chrisrus (talk) 14:39, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I object to the merge proposal too and will remove the templates now. --Fama Clamosa (talk) 08:58, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Size, Again?

I see it's been mentioned here previously, but I still don't know if moles are size of mice or small dogs. 99.75.104.46 (talk) 19:16, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Three years later, and their size is still a mystery? 184.209.6.43 (talk) 16:41, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Each genus is different. The place to discuss size would be on the article for that specific genus more so than this article which is about the family. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 17:01, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

I reverted that one edit as it was only for a singular genus, Scalopus aquaticus, and wasn't true of all moles, per the actual source itself. I've seen other sources that show the sizes of different genuses is very different. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 19:22, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

File:Sternmull.jpg Nominated for Deletion

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Moles as natural grub killer?

I'm not sure where I learned this, but if you keep repairing the damage they do, moles are actually very good for lawns long-term, because they eat all the grass-root-eating grubs. I'd like to add this to the article, but I don't know how to cite this fact. Do you have any suggestion as to how to find a citation for the fact that moles, if you can tolerate having to remove the molehills and such, moles are actually good natural grub killers who move on after clearing out an area, leaving it grub-free? Chrisrus (talk) 03:29, 7 September 2011 (UTC) And also, they actually function as lawn aerators, too, when it's too compacted. Chrisrus (talk) 03:29, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Statement removed as likely incomprehensible to the reader. Please comment

Comparison between the Iberian mole and the North American Least Shrew indicates that the development of the mole's prepollex is associated with the SOX9 gene and that this represents a unique developmental pathway.

What's the point of this information? I think this is an idea that belongs with the bit about the "extra thumb", but I found it in the "classification" section. What to do with it? Chrisrus (talk) 19:50, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Moles are not cylindrical

I'm wondering why my edit was removed. My edit changed the opening sentence from stating that moles are cylindrical to stating that they are approximately cylindrical (edit 20:33, 16 October 2014‎). Clearly, moles are not cylindrical so without the edit the opening sentence is factually inaccurate. Why not keep the edit? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.217.49.68 (talk)

Extra thumb not shown in photo

Mole paw

The picture accompanying the article's account of the mole's extra thumb shows only five digits. It's a great picture of those five digits, but it manifestly does not show the extra thumb which it's presumably supposed to illustrate. Can somebody furnish a picture that shows the extra thumb? J. D. Crutchfield | Talk 22:50, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

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Mole Trapping Options

The article mentions that live trapping is an option but the reference given is an opinion with no further information. There is nothing about what type of trap could be used or how it might be implemented. While it's possible in theory, I have never seen or heard of an effective live trap for moles. Squoip (talk) 18:55, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

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The Life of Mammals does not mention mole saliva having paralytic effects on earthworms

After watching the relevant portion of The Life of Mammals episode 2, while I see mention of mole runs as earthworm traps, I see no mention of mole saliva having paralytic effects on earthworms, or of worm larders. The internet contains many mentions of this, but none have citations. I am gessing that they are citogenesis from this Wikipedia page.
-is8ac (talk) 17:50, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

• I have looked around and I agree that this looks like mythical information if it refers to the European mole T.europaea, which apperently does immobilise its earthworm victims by a bite at the 'head'-end, sometims storing large numbers (hundreds) in 'larders'.
  -- jw (talk) 22:08, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
• But let us be careful for the moment and not proceeed to a hasty delete:

1. I have asked around for back-up references to some of that www info and I'll come back as soon as I receive some more info.
2. There might be other moles or Talpids which do have toxic saliva ...
   -- jw (talk) 22:08, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

@Is8ac: So far (see previous comment above) I have received one reply, with a reference intended to support the poisonous/venomous statement, which in fact when read in detail states the oppposite, i.e. that the European mole (T.europaea) does not have venom, and that there is no evidence of poisonous saliva ! -- jw (talk) 21:37, 27 December 2020 (UTC).

Moles - chromosomal anomalies

In some sense, moles appear to be hermaphrodite and are notable to zoologists for that reason. See

https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/for-moles-sex-is-a-spectrum-and-weve-just-learned/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roseberyxxx (talk • contribs) 10:30, 9 May 2022 (UTC) See also "Moles" by Dr R Atkinson https://www.nhbs.com/moles-book — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roseberyxxx (talk • contribs) 09:00, 10 May 2022 (UTC)