Mole Miner

Mole Miners are enemies that appear in Donkey Kong Country Returns and Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D.

As their name suggests, Mole Miners are based on real world s. Every Mole Miner is brown, has pink paws, and wear a headlamp which covers their eyes. They appear to have freckles on the sides of their faces. Mole Miners have a stubby tail and a large bucktooth sticking out of their mouth. One of Cranky Kong's lines in the game suggests that they're blind, much like real-life moles. They also have a bomb-throwing variant, Mole Guards.

Donkey Kong Country Returns / Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D
In Donkey Kong Country Returns, Mole Miners only appear in Crazy Cart and the Cave area of Donkey Kong Island, but they are very common in this area. Mole Miners are the ones who constructed all of the rails and mine carts in the Cave. Mole Miners frequently ride around in a mine cart, often on a separate track from Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong.

Mole Miners are weak enemies and are easy to avoid. The mine cart-riding Mole Miners do not attack the Kongs directly except for attempting to drive into them. Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong can avoid the Mole Miner by either jumping over or onto it. The only two mine cart levels that Mole Miners are not in are Roasting Rails and Prehistoric Path. Mole Miners often carry around an axe as its weapon.

In Mole Patrol, there are Mole Miners who attach balloons to themselves to move around in the air. Their only attack is swinging a pickaxe at the Kongs. Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong can pop their balloon by touching it.

Mole Miners appear during the boss level The Mole Train, where they assist the boss Mole Miner Max. In a cutscene at the start, the Mole Miners are loading bananas into the Mole Train, and one is eating a sandwich that it pulled from its lunchbox. During the battle, Mole Miners throw either pickaxes or bombs at the Kongs until reaching the train, where the Mole Miners dig into the bananas and later emerge to swipe their claws around the Kongs. After doing so, the Kongs must quickly stomp on the Mole Miner to defeat it, although sometimes the Mole Miner fakes out the Kongs and immediately disappears back into the bananas. A Mole Miner sometimes drops a Heart upon being defeated.

Mario Kart Arcade GP DX
Mole Miners reappear in Mario Kart Arcade GP DX in the track Bananan Labyrinth, where they are seen riding mine carts in the cave section of the track.