Amblysomus
| Amblysomus | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Afrosoricida |
| Family: | Chrysochloridae |
| Genus: |
Amblysomus Pomel, 1848 |
| Species | |
Amblysomus is a genus of golden moles (also "African golden moles" and "South African golden moles") in the golden mole family, Chrysochloridae. It contains the following species:
Members of Amblysomus are distributed in Southern Africa. All five species are found in South Africa with some being found in Swaziland and Lesotho as well.
Amblysomus is part of the family of golden moles, Chrysochloridae. The order of golden moles and tenrecs, Afrosoricida, is part of Afrotheria, one of the four main divisions of placental mammals, along with elephant shrews, aardvarks, hyraxes, sirenians and elephants. Golden moles are not all golden. Some have black to pale tawny-yellow fur.; the name and family name “Chrysochloridae” (meaning green-gold), refers to the coppery gold, green, purple or bronze sheen of their dense fur. They all have differences in size and color, but have a similar appearance” with compact fusiform or lozenge-shaped bodies, short and powerful forelimbs containing pick-like claws, and no external eyes, ears or tail”. Their fur consists of guard hairs that are moisture repellent. They have a woolly underfur for insulation. Their skin is thick and tough, especially on the head, containing a wedge-shaped muzzle with a leathery nosepad protecting its nostrils. upward thrust of their dorsally-flattened head and powerful down thrusts of the foreclaws help them tunnel through the soil during subsurface foraging. This creates raised visible ridges of soil. Genera Amblysomus and Neamblysomus use the head and webbed hind feet to move soil and evict it on the surface.
Similarities to fossorial mammals resulted from ecological convergence, not ancestry. The eyes are vestigial and that is why they are covered by skin. The optic nerve is degenerate because they live underground where there is little use of them. The external ear pinnae are absent as well as the external tail. The body has a streamlined shape which facilitates movement through dense substratum. On the outside, they are similar to other fossorial small mammals, but the golden moles show highly specialized characters like “a unique hyoid-dentary articulation. Some also have hypertrophied malleus bones in the middle ear that permits great sensitivity to underground vibrations and airborne sounds. They have a third bone in the forearm (i.e. ossified tendon) and a reduction of phalanges in the fore- and hindfeet. Muscle arrangements are not paralleled in the Mammalia. Most anatomical specializations shown in extant species are found in 3 fossil species (dating back to the Miocene). Chrysochlorids have been described as "spectacularly autapomorphic" due to how unusual and numerous they are.
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