Also 8 ziemni, 9 zemmi. [Short for Russ. dial. shchenók zemnói ‘puppy of earth’ (zemnói adj. f. zemlya earth).] The blind mole-rat, Spalax typhlus. Also zemni-rat.
1785. Smellie, trans. Buffon’s Nat. Hist. (1791), VIII. 232. In Poland and Russia there is another animal called ziemni or zemni, which is of the same genus with the zisel.
1836–9. Todd’s Cycl. Anat., II. 571/2. Some … are devoid of the auricle, as the mole, the zemni-rat, the mole-rat.
