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Other species, such as the golden-mantled ground squirrel, mountain plover, and the burrowing owl, also rely on prairie dog burrows for nesting areas. Even grazing species, such as plains bison , pronghorn , and mule deer have shown a proclivity for grazing on the same land used by prairie dogs.
A large variety of vertebrates construct or use burrows in many types of substrate; burrows can range widely in complexity. Some examples of vertebrate burrowing animals include a number of mammals, amphibians, fish (dragonet and lungfish [3]), reptiles, and birds (including small dinosaurs [4]). Mammals are perhaps most well known for burrowing.
The oldest example of burrowing in synapsids, the lineage which includes modern mammals and their ancestors, is a cynodont, Thrinaxodon liorhinus, found in the Karoo of South Africa, estimated to be 251 million years old.
The California Fish and Game Commission unanimously voted to protect western burrowing owls throughout California as a “candidate” species under the California Endangered Species Act.
The naked mole-rat (Heterocephalus glaber), also known as the sand puppy, [6] is a burrowing rodent native to the Horn of Africa and parts of Kenya, notably in Somali regions. It is closely related to the blesmols and is the only species in the genus Heterocephalus .
Black-tailed prairie dogs enhance the diversity of vegetation, vertebrates, and invertebrates through their foraging and burrowing activities and by their presence as prey items. [ 5 ] [ 30 ] [ 44 ] [ 45 ] Grasslands inhabited by black-tailed prairie dogs support higher biodiversity than grasslands not occupied by them.
Many groups of burrowing animals (pink fairy armadillos, tuco-tucos, mole rats, mole crickets, pygmy mole crickets, and mole crabs) have independently developed close physical similarities with moles due to convergent evolution; two of these are so similar to true moles, they are commonly called and thought of as "moles" in common English ...
The latter subclass is divided into two infraclasses: pouched mammals (metatherians or marsupials), and placental mammals (eutherians, for which see List of placental mammals). Classification updated from Wilson and Reeder's "Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference" using the "Planet Mammifères" website. [1]