In honor of Armando Galarraga.

As I begin to ease into the work of studying for quals, I may end up going down a path of pedantry that none of you signed up for. To wit:

fossorial (burrowing), etymology: from the latin fossa (n. ditch) or the latin fodere, to dig. As opposed to, of course, arboreal (inhabiting trees) or cursorial (adapted to running). As in, “members of family Geomyidae, the pocket gophers, are the most highly fossorial North American rodents.”

Some beautiful photographs of endangered species of the United States.