tuco-tuco

[too-koh-too-koh]

noun

plural

tuco-tucos 

1. any of several burrowing rodents of the genus Ctenomys, of South America, resembling the pocket gopher.

Word History and Origins

Origin of tuco-tuco¹

First recorded in 1835–45; from Latin American Spanish tucotuco, imitative of its cry

Example Sentences

When he wasn’t eating sleek brown rodents himself — probably the twenty pound agouti, which Darwin regarded as “the very best meat I ever tasted” — or collecting small tuco-tuco rodents as pets, the naturalist made important rodent fossil discoveries in Argentina.

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Other specimens belonged to an extinct species of tuco-tuco which grew as large as current-day capybaras.

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Then there’s the tuco-tuco, which Darwin described on his travels as “A curious, small animal…tucotucos appear…to be gregarious…This animal is universally known by a very peculiar noise…A person the first time he hears it is much surprised.”

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Impressed by her earlier work regarding another species, scientists named a newly discovered type of gopher-like rodent after her: Erika’s tuco-tuco, aka Ctenomys erikacuellarae.

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The gopher-like tuco-tuco is native to Bolivia.

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