The neck is short. The hand is permanently turned outward because the radius articulates with the humerus in an S -shaped cavity. The humerus is massive and articulates with the short, thick clavicle. The scapula is long and narrow, and the sternum is large, projected anteriorly, and, in the burrowing forms, deeply keeled. The tibia and the fibula are joined along their distal half.
Females have three or four pairs of mammae.
The penis is directed toward the rear of the body, and the scrotum is represented by only a slight bulge in the skin. In most forms of moles, almost all the hairs are about the same length, soft, flexible, and of small diameter near the body, so that the fur is much like velvet and will lie in any direction, enabling a mole to go forward or backward in small burrows. Desmans have long, oily guard hairs interspersed with the shorter hairs. The first upper incisor is flat, without an elongate crown. The upper molars have three cusps, and the crowns are W -shaped.