Related Biomes
Boreal Red-backed Vole
Boreal red-backed vole, Clethrionomys gapperi
The boreal red-backed vole, also known as the southern red-backed vole, is an extant species of rodent that is currently found throughout Canada and the mountainous and extreme northern portions of the U.S. It had a more southerly distribution during the last ice age, and serves as an indicator of cooler temperatures during that time.
Red-backed Vole. By D. Gordon E. Robertson (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons.
Length: 12.7-15.2 cm (5-6 in)
Weight: 6-42 gm (0.21-1.48 oz)
Physical Description:
The boreal red-backed vole is a mouse-like rodent with a blunt nose, short ears, small eyes and short tail. It has gray fur with a reddish stripe running the length of its back and a bicolored tail that is darker brown on the top and paler gray on the underside. Its fur is long and thick, with paler coloring, in winter, and shorter and darker in summer.
This rodent prefers damp coniferous, deciduous or mixed forests with plenty of stumps, rotting logs and exposed roots to provide cover. However, it will also utilize habitats such as marshes, bogs, rocky ridges, mesic prairie, tundra, old fields, and clearcuts, as long as there are sufficient sources of both food and cover.
Boreal red-backed voles are opportunistic omnivores and will shift their diet in response to the types of food that are available in a given area and season. They primarily eat a wide range of plant materials, including grasses, sedges, fruits, berries, nuts, seeds, mosses, lichens, fungi and roots, in addition to insects and snails. In the winter, they will eat stored food (e.g., roots, nuts and bulbs) and forage for roots, seeds and bark.
As with other voles, this animal is active year-round, and it enters a state of torpor, rather than hibernating, in order to conserve energy during the cold months. They use runways through logs, rocks, tree root, leaf litter and surface growth to get around during warmer months, and create tunnels through the snow in the winter. They prefer to hop, rather than run, and are good jumpers and climbers. Boreal red-backed voles use burrows built by other rodents or create nests under logs, tree roots or brush piles.
During the late Pleistocene, this species had a more southerly distribution than it currently enjoys, indicating that regional conditions were cooler at that time. Whereas today this rodent is restricted to Canada, the extreme northern U.S., and the Appalachian and Rocky mountain portions of the U.S., it has been recovered from Wisconsinan sites as far south as Arkansas, Tennessee, southern Missouri, West Virginia and Virginia, as well as from sites in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Nebraska and southern Wisconsin.
As mean temperatures began to rise towards the end of the Pleistocene, these rodents followed the retreat of the glaciers northward, to their current distribution.
Boreal red-backed vole remains have been recovered from numerous late Pleistocene sites in the Midwest, including many located far south of their current distribution. These sites include Peccary Cave and Ten Mile Rock in northwest Arkansas; Zoo Cave in southern Missouri; Brynjulfson Cave #1, Crankshaft Cave and Barnhart in eastern Missouri; Prairie Creek, Sullivan's Cave, Megenity Peccary Cave, and King Leo Pit Cave in southern Indiana.
Merritt, J. 1981. Clethrionomys gapperi. Mammalian Species 146: 1-9.
Related Animals:
