Study Looks at Burrowing Mammals Evolution

Oct 29, 02:22 PM

Current Headlines: A U.S. scientist is investigating how evolutionary changes involved in moving soil have impacted mammals such as moles that burrow in search of food.

University of Oregon paleontology Professor Samantha Hopkins notes a mole's humerus bones are nothing like the long upper arm bones of any other mammal.

Hopkins is studying the evolutionary history of burrowers, in search of why and how they adapted a physique for digging in response to environmental influences or other forced changes in habitats.

It requires a lot of morphological adaptation, a lot of tradeoffs, to be good at digging, she said. "That's intuitive to us as humans who have handled a shovel in the backyard. We know that it's really hard work to shift soil. Burrowing mammals acquire a complex of features that lets them handle whole days moving soil.

They make for a great case for understanding convergent evolution because in spite of how difficult it is to do this Â… it seems to be worthwhile enough that many mammals have done it through time.

Hopkins presented her ongoing research this week in Denver during the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America.