Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Rodentia > Cricetidae > Microtus > Microtus richardsoni

Microtus richardsoni (water vole)

Synonyms: Arvicola macropus; Arvicola richardsoni; Aulacomys arvicoloides; Microtus principalis; Microtus richardsoni myllodontus

Wikipedia Abstract

The water vole (Microtus richardsoni) is the largest North American vole. It is found in the northwestern United States and southern parts of western Canada. This animal has been historically considered a member of genus Arvicola, but molecular evidence demonstrates that it is more closely related to North American Microtus species. Water voles are on the USDA Forest Service Region 2 sensitive species list because they maintain very small populations and there is high concern that their required habitat may be declining.
View Wikipedia Record: Microtus richardsoni

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
3
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
21
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 7.32
EDGE Score: 2.12
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Gestation [3]  22 days
Litter Size [3]  6
Litters / Year [3]  2
Maximum Longevity [5]  2 years
Snout to Vent Length [5]  6 inches (16 cm)
Water Biome [1]  Lakes and Ponds, Rivers and Streams
Weaning [3]  21 days
Adult Weight [2]  106 grams
Birth Weight [3]  5 grams
Female Weight [2]  99 grams
Male Weight [2]  114 grams
Weight Dimorphism [2]  15.2 %
Diet [4]  Granivore, Herbivore
Diet - Plants [4]  80 %
Diet - Seeds [4]  20 %
Forages - Ground [4]  100 %

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Prey / Diet

Erythronium grandiflorum (yellow avalanche-lily)[2]
Salix barrattiana (Barratt willow)[2]
Xerophyllum tenax (Indian Basket Grass)[2]

Prey / Diet Overlap

Competing SpeciesCommon Prey Count
Marmota caligata (hoary marmot)1
Marmota vancouverensis (Vancouver marmot)1
Oreamnos americanus (mountain goat)1
Tamias ruficaudus (red-tailed chipmunk)1
Thomomys talpoides (northern pocket gopher)1

Predators

Esox lucius (Jack)[6]
Martes americana (American Marten)[2]
Mustela erminea (Ermine)[2]
Strix nebulosa (Great Grey Owl)[6]

Consumers

Range Map

External References

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
♦ 2Microtus richardsoni, Daniel R. Ludwig, Mammalian Species No. 223, pp. 1-6 (1984)
♦ 3de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 4Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 5Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 6Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 7International Flea Database
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0