Look at those front claws that are great for digging.
These mole facts are sure to teach you a few things about moles that you didn’t know. Here are 8 fun facts about these small, burrowing mammals that live throughout the Rocky Mountains.
I have to admit that I have never actually seen a mole, but I have seen evidence of them a lot. Similar to most animals you can know they are around by finding evidence of them in the landscape. For most animals, you can know if they are around by finding tracks or scat. Well, moles are different than those because the most tell tale sign of them is their tunnels.
8 Fun Mole Facts
They spend their entire life living underground!
They are small mammals whose bodies are adapted to living a life underground digging through the soil. They have very small back feet and their front feet have powerful claws that are perfect for digging.
They prefer to eat bugs, worms, and spiders. Basically, they crawl around in the dirt all day long looking for and eating what they find. Their favorite food is worms. In a year a mole can eat up to 50 pounds of worms! Just for comparison purposes the average American eats about 31 pounds of cheese in a year.
Moles actually have the ability to paralyze their prey (think worms) when they catch them. Sometimes they will paralyze worms and then store them in certain storage areas within their tunnels. This allows them to go and eat those worms later when they are hungry.
Moles are kind of cute. Photo via Flickr.
They can dig up to 20 meters (65 feet) of tunnel every day!
It may not look like it, but moles do in fact have eyes. Their eyes are small and covered by a layer of fur. Since they live most of their lives underground in the dark they just don’t need great eyesight. The fur over their eyes is there to protect them from the dirt and everything else that they encounter while tunneling around underground.
Unlike many animals, moles don’t hibernate during the winter. Rather, they stay busy crawling around, looking for food.
This species is a star nose mole. Photo via Flickr.
Moles live throughout the world and on most continents except for Antarctica and South America. Similar to other animals, such as deer, there are many different species of moles.