woodland vole

▪ rodent

 a small mouselike rodent of the eastern United States that is well adapted to burrowing, as reflected by its slender, cylindrical body, strong feet, and large front claws. The very small eyes and ears are hidden in short, dense molelike fur; prominent whiskers are useful in navigating underground.

      The woodland vole is one of the smallest members of its genus, weighing 14 to 37 grams (0.5 to 1.3 ounces). It measures 11 to 14 cm (4.3 to 5.5 inches) long, including the short tail (1 to 3 cm). The soft, silky fur is glossy brown or chestnut and is darker in the winter than in the summer. The underparts are dusky or silvery gray. The tail is brown above and lighter below.

      The woodland vole is active all year, day or night. It spends most of its time in burrows (burrowing) dug just below a ceiling of thick leaf litter. To construct the burrows, the vole first loosens the soil by using its head, incisor teeth, and forefeet. It then turns around and, again using its head, pushes the resulting debris out of the tunnel and into piles under the leaf litter. Woodland voles also build globular nests of dead grass and leaves under logs or within the burrows. They occasionally emerge from their subsurface network, but only long enough to scamper through shallow pathways into another shelter. Their diet consists of grass (both roots and stems), fruit, seeds, and bark; sometimes fungi and insects are eaten. One to four litters are produced each year with one to five young per litter; the average is two or three. Gestation is only about three weeks.

      Woodland voles are found from extreme southern Ontario to northern Florida along the eastern seaboard, and westward to central Wisconsin, eastern Kansas and Oklahoma, and northeastern Texas. They are most common in beech-maple forests of the eastern and central states, where moist, crumbly soils support dense grassy patches or thick carpets of leaves. Along coastal bays they live from the edge of the shore to spruce and birch forest in mountains. They inhabit orchards of the northeastern United States and cultivated fields of southern states. Only at the extreme southeastern segment of their range (northern Florida) are they found in dense pine and scrub oak woodlands. Isolated populations in eastern Texas are remnants of a former southwestern distribution, as revealed by cave samples dating from the Pleistocene Epoch (1,800,000 to 10,000 years ago). These samples show that now-arid habitats in the Southwest were once moist grasslands inhabited by woodland voles.

      The woodland vole is one of 61 species in the meadow vole genus (Microtus). Its closest living relative is the Jalapan pine vole (M. quasiater), which inhabits cool and wet forests of eastern Mexico in the states of San Luis Potosí and Oaxaca.

      Voles, lemmings (lemming), and muskrats (muskrat) are all classified in the subfamily Arvicolinae of the mouse family, Muridae.

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