according to the university of michigan s animal diversity web site for example this page the talpinae subfamily scalopinae is synonymous with the term new world moles and relatives and consists of two tribes one of these is just the star nosed mole which is north american and the only member of its tribe the other tribe is amusingly to me named the scalopini a word synonymous with the term hairy tailed moles and includes four sub groups three of which are exclusively north american new world moles but the forth one though is chinese specifically gansu moles how can this be there must be some mistake i think if not something very anomalous and interesting is happening forget about calling this group new word if it has asian animals what is a north american animal doing in the middle of china