JLRosso at aol.com writes:

> " The list of mammals recorded includes deer and their fawns, antelopes,
> lambs of moutain sheep, goats and their kids, domestic calves, lambs, dogs,
> cats, young pigs, foxes, hares, rabbits, ground and arboreal squirrels,
> raccoons, prairie dogs, woodchucks, marmots, spermopiles (?), porcupines,
> opossums, skunks, weasels, martens, pocket gophers, rats, mice, and moles. "
>
> What is a spermopile?

_spermophilus_ is the scientific (not latin, as many people, including me,
tend to say) name for ground squirrels, but it is also used in English.
I checked my on-line dictionary, and it gave me:

Word: spermophile
sper-mo-phile \'sper-me-,f[0xF5]^-l\ n
[deriv. of Gk sperma seed + philos loving]
(1824)
:GROUND SQUIRREL


My mammalian contribution for today!

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A bird in the bush is better than two in the hand.

Serge Le Huitouze Intelligent Software Group
email: serge at cs.sfu.ca School of Computing Science
tel: (604) 291-5423 Simon Fraser University
fax: (604) 291-3045 Burnaby, B.C., V5A 1S6 CANADA
http://www.isg.sfu.ca/~serge/