The insular mole (''Mogera insularis'') is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriat ...

mammal Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur ...

in the family

Talpidae The family Talpidae () includes the moles (some of whom are called shrew moles and desmans) who are small insectivorous mammals of the order Eulipotyphla. Talpids are all digging animals to various degrees: moles are completely subterranean ...

. It is restricted to

Hainan Island Hainan (, ; ) is the smallest and southernmost province of the People's Republic of China (PRC), consisting of various islands in the South China Sea. , the largest and most populous island in China,The island of Taiwan, which is slight ...

and

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...

, where it is also known as the Formosan blind mole. The species was first described by

Robert Swinhoe Robert Swinhoe FRS (1 September 1836 – 28 October 1877) was an English diplomat and naturalist who worked as a Consul in Formosa. He catalogued many Southeast Asian birds, and several, such as Swinhoe's pheasant, are named after him. Biogr ...

in 1863.

Taxonomy

La Touche's mole La Touche's mole (''Mogera latouchei'') is a species of mammal in the family Talpidae. It is found in eastern China and parts of northern Vietnam. It is named after Irish naturalist John David Digues La Touche. It was formerly considered a subs ...

(''M. latouchei'') of mainland

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

and northern

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making ...

was formerly considered conspecific with ''M. insularis'' until a 2007 taxonomic analysis found it to be a distinct species. In addition, the same study found that populations of ''M. insularis'' in the mountainous center and western lowlands of Taiwan represented a new, distinct species,

Kano's mole Kano's mole (''Mogera kanoana'') is a species of mole endemic to Taiwan. The specific name ''kanoana'' is derived from Tadao Kano, a Japanese naturalist who made the first record of these animals in 1940s. It is found in the mountainous center ...

(''M. kanoana''). The same study also treated the Hainan population as a distinct species (''M. hainana'') for the sake of comparing geographic variation, but did not do genetic analysis on it and thus later authorities have not followed through with ''hainana'' as a distinct species. However, a 2021 genetic analysis found ''hainana'' to likely represent a distinct species, leaving ''insularis'' as endemic to only Taiwan. Phylogenetic evidence supports it being the

sister species In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...

to a clade comprising ''kanoana'' and ''hainana'' (if the latter is considered a distinct species).

Characteristics

''Mogera insularis'' is unique from other moles in the

Talpinae The subfamily Talpinae, sometimes called "Old World moles" or "Old World moles and relatives", is one of three subfamilies of the mole family Talpidae, the others being the Scalopinae, or New World moles, and the Uropsilinae, or shrew-like moles. ...

family in that it has 32 chromosomes instead of 34 to 38

chromosomes A chromosome is a long DNA molecule with part or all of the genetic material of an organism. In most chromosomes the very long thin DNA fibers are coated with packaging proteins; in eukaryotic cells the most important of these proteins ar ...

. Additionally, ''Mogera insularis'' members also have a metacentric chromosome pair that is much larger than its other chromosome markers.

References

Mogera Mammals described in 1863 Fauna of Taiwan Fauna of Hainan Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{soricomorpha-stub