Search Field Guide
Advanced Search
Montana Animal Field Guide

Montana Field Guides

Heather Vole - Phenacomys intermedius

Google for more images Google for web pages

Global Rank: G5
State Rank: S4

Agency Status
USFWS: none
USFS: none
BLM: none
CFWCS Tier: 3
 

General Description
The adult heather vole is 4 1/2 to 6 inches long, weighing a little over an ounce. It is gray with a brown to dark-brown cast to the fur, white face, and silvery belly.

General Distribution
Montana Range



Western Hemisphere Range

 


Summary of Observations Submitted for Montana
Number of Observations: 101

(Click on the following maps and charts to see full sized version) Map Help and Descriptions
Relative Density

Recency

 

(Records associated with a range of dates are excluded from time charts)



Habitat
Most common in subalpine spruce-fir forest w/ evergreen shrub ground cover, also in timberline krummholz, alpine tundra. Sometimes in montane yellowpine-doug fir forests w/ bearberry-twinflower understory (Hoffmann and Pattie 1968).

Food Habits
Prepares caches of food for winter - twigs and berries (Banfield 1974).

Ecology
Winter nest is a hollow sphere of twigs & lichens about 6 inches diam., above ground in protected spot. Summer nest 4-10 in. underground (Banfield 1974). Does not tend to construct runways. Red feces.

Citations & Sources
  • Burt, W. H. and R. P. Grossenheider. 1964. A field guide to the mammals. 2nd edition. The Peterson Field Guide Series. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, MA.
  • Foresman, K.R. 2001. The wild mammals of Montana. Special Publication No. 12. American Society of Mammalogists
  • Kritzman, Ellen B. 1977. Little mammals of the Pacific Northwest. Pacific Search Press, Seattle, WA.
  • Zeveloff, S. I. 1988. Mammals of the Intermountain West. Univ. of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, Utah.
Login Logout
Citation for data on this website:
Heather Vole — Phenacomys intermedius.  Montana Field Guide.  Retrieved on February 9, 2010, from http://FieldGuide.mt.gov/detail_AMAFF10010.aspx
 
There are currently 40 active users in the Montana Field Guide.