Definition of "fossorial" [fos•so•ri•al]

• Zoology Adapted for or used in burrowing or digging: the fossorial forefeet of a mole. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Four of the endemics are representatives of the three endemic genera in the hotspot: a rodent (Microakodontomys transitorius), known only from a single specimen collected in 1986 in the Brasília National Park; the Candango mouse (Juscelinomys candango), a semi-fossorial rodent first discovered in 1960 on the site of the capital, Brasília, then under construction, and which has never again been collected; and the cerrado mouse (Thalpomys cerradensis) and hairy-eared cerrado mouse (T. lasiotis)."
• "These include colonial fossorial rodents (marmots, ground squirrels) large birds of prey, and phytophagous insects (grasshoppers)."
• "-- Pearsonomys annectans Patterson, 1992, a semi-fossorial Chilean murid."