Heather Vole - Phenacomys intermedius
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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.
Distribution
Montana Range
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.