His earlier works, like "L'Effet de Serge" and "La Mélancolie des dragons," show that he can locate the numinous in nearly anything, even a colorblind burrowing mammal.
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A burrowing mammal, the spotted ground squirrel will make tunnels to store its food, as well as shelter and hibernation quarters.
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Marley's golden mole (Amblysomus marleyi) is a species of burrowing mammal in the golden mole family, Chrysochloridae. It is found in South Africa and possibly Eswatini. It has been separated from Amblysomus hottentotus by Bronner (1995b, 1996, 2000). Its natural habitat is indigenous forests and moist grassland, and also gardens.
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The entrance holes are generally in diameter.Hoogland, J.L. (1995) The Black- tailed Prairie Dog: Social Life of a Burrowing Mammal, Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Prairie dog burrows can have up to six entrances. Sometimes the entrances are simply flat holes in the ground, while at other times they are surrounded by mounds of soil either left as piles or hard packed.
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The history of the colonization of the world's continents by rodents is complex. The movements of the large superfamily Muroidea (including hamsters, gerbils, true mice and rats) may have involved up to seven colonizations of Africa, five of North America, four of Southeast Asia, two of South America and up to ten of Eurasia. The horned gopher Ceratogaulus hatcheri, a burrowing mammal of the late Miocene to early Pleistocene, is the only known horned rodent.
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A black-tailed prairie dog, with young, emerges from its burrow A large variety of vertebrates construct or use burrows in many different types of substrate and can range widely in complexity. Some examples of vertebrate burrowing animals include a number of mammals, amphibians, fish (dragonet and lungfish), reptiles, and birds (including small dinosaurs). Mammals are perhaps most well known for burrowing. Mammal species such as Insectivora like the voracious mole, and rodents like the prolific gopher, great gerbil and groundhog are often found to form burrows.
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Truly fossorial mammals have short, stout legs as strength is more important than speed to a burrowing mammal, but semi- fossorial mammals have cursorial legs. The front paws are broad and have strong claws to help in loosening dirt while excavating burrows, and the back paws have webbing, as well as claws, which aids in throwing loosened dirt backwards. Most have large incisors to prevent dirt from flying into their mouth. Many fossorial mammals such as shrews, hedgehogs, and moles were classified under the now obsolete order Insectivora.
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Hoogland, J.L. (1995) The Black- tailed Prairie Dog: Social Life of a Burrowing Mammal, Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press Perhaps the most conspicuous prairie dog communication is the territorial call or "jump-yip" display. A prairie dog will stretch the length of its body vertically and throw its forefeet into the air while making a call. A jump-yip from one prairie dog causes others nearby to do the same. The instigator of the jump-yip 'wave' uses the jump-yip to assess the vigilance or watchfulness of others in the colony - a longer jump-yip wave indicates watchful neighbors and leads to increased foraging by the instigator.
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Though the spotted ground squirrel is considered to be generally a burrowing mammal which spends a large portion of its time in hibernation, it spends a majority of its above-ground activity foraging and feeding on food resources. With the rest of its time being dedicated to alert calls, maintenance behavior (resting, sun bathing, grooming) and sexual behavior in males and females. During their mating season sexual behavior plays a larger role in its above ground activity, involving a 'frenzy' like pattern of males entering and exiting their burrows sporadically, most likely observed as a type of courting behavior. The spotted ground squirrel have 7 different alert postures used to warn others about likely predators in the area or to stake a territory claim against other males during mating seasons.
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