a. and sb. Chiefly Zool. [f. L. fossōri-us, f. fossor, agent-n. of fodĕre to dig + -AL.] A. adj.
1. Having a faculty of digging, able to burrow, burrowing, fodient.
Fossorial Hymenoptera, a family of insects called Fossores.
1836–9. R. B. Todd, The Cyclopædia of Anatomy and Physiology, II. 46/2. The recently discovered American fossorial animal, the Chlamyphorus.
1845. Zoologist, III. 847. Observations, illustrative of the economy of some species of Fossorial Hymenoptera.
1877. Coues, Fur Anim., ix. 280. Other animals are as decidedly fossorial as the Badger.
2. Of or pertaining to fodient animals, adapted for or used in burrowing.
1845. Todd & Bowman, Phys. Anat., I. 148. Among the Edentata those tribes possess a clavicle whose habits are fossorial, as the ant-eater, the armadillo, and even the gigantic extinct megatherium.
1854. Owen, in Circ. Sc. (c. 1865), II. 107/1. The enormous claws of those great extinct sloth-like quadrupeds, to judge by the fossorial (digging and scratching) character of the powerful mechanism of the limbs that worked them.
1865. Wood, Homes without H., 22. The fossorial limbs of the Badger are useful in various ways; for not only do they enable their owner to dig a domicile which none dare invade without the help of man, but they aid him in obtaining a kind of food to which he is particularly partial.
B. sb. A fossorial animal.
1855. in Ogilvie, Suppl., Fossorials.
