What's the translation of "paleoburrow" in French?

Question

A paleoburrow is an:

underground shelter (tunnel, burrow, lair, etc.) excavated by extinct paleo-vertebrate megafauna (i.e., giant mammals, such as ground sloths) that lived in the prehistoric era.[1][2][3]

Example from {1}:

What's the translation of "paleoburrow" in French?

Google Translate and Linguee didn't help.

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References:

• {1} Lopes, Renato Pereira, Heinrich Theodor Frank, Francisco Sekiguchi de Carvalho Buchmann, and Felipe Caron. "Megaichnus igen. nov.: giant paleoburrows attributed to extinct Cenozoic mammals from South America." Ichnos 24, no. 2 (2017): 133-145. Google Scholar; PDF.

Answer 1

The term "paleoburrow" started spreading more largely around 2010 when geologists discovered the first such burrows in Brazil and forged the Portuguese word paleotocas as a word for word translation from English (tocas → tunnel/burrow)¹.

But it looks as if the word hasn't yet got an acknowledged translation in French. I haven't found a scientific paper on the subject in French yet but terrier is the word that is the most often used when communicating with the general public.

If we look at recent popularisation articles we can find the word paléoterrier :

Il se pourrait qu’aucun paléoterrier n’ait été trouvé dans ces autres régions parce que personne n’en a cherché. Ce domaine de recherche spécifique en est à ses balbutiements, (Trendcatchers, 2019)

Sometimes still used between brackets:

des marques de griffes qui l'ont conduit à conclure que ce passage serait en réalité "un paléoterrier". Autrement dit, le terrier creusé par une créature fouisseuse il y a des milliers d'années. (Maxiscience, 2017)

We could make an appropriate guess in saying that in the long run paléoterrier – the word for word translation from English and Portuguese – will establish itself in French.

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^{1 Article in Discovery Magazine,Mar 28, 2017.}

Answer 2

There seems to be no specific term, and these lairs would be referred to often as "tunnels".

Ces tunnels creusés il y a 10 000 ans seraient l’oeuvre de paresseux géants

In this second article the term used is "terrier", which is a more specific term ("burrow", "hole", in English).

Ulyces

Quite conceivably, then, those holes could then be referred to as "terriers paléolithiques".

Ces énormes tunnels découverts au Brésil ont-ils été creusés par des créatures géantes ?

In the French Wikipedia, the term "terrier géant" is used (and also "large tunnel").

A specific term to match the English does exist; it is "paléoterrier". It is used here, here and here.

Answer 3

Paleo is paleon in French, yet I've never heard of such a word which would be a mix of the previous with Burrow (or something else that means hole, tunnel, etc.). We would most probably use two words or a full sentence to say that in French.

But I think I have the answer you are looking for : terrier. It means the same thing physically, but the difference is that a terrier also adds up to the fact that this is indead a hole, but that it a vast combination of tunnels instead of a single one. And that it is also home of the creature. Such as Meerkats by example, who build those terriers.

So either you invent a new word for it like paleonterrier or paleon-terrier, cause there isn't one that exists yet! Or as I said before you'd refer to it as a terrier dating back from whichever year/era.

Un vieux terrier? Un terrier primitif? Un ancien terrier? Un terrier antique?

Hope this can help!