Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Soricomorpha > Talpidae > Talpa > Talpa europaea

Talpa europaea (European Mole)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

The European mole (Talpa europaea) is a mammal of the order Eulipotyphla. It is also known as the common mole and the northern mole. This mole lives in an underground tunnel system, which it constantly extends. It uses these tunnels to hunt its prey. Under normal conditions the displaced earth is pushed to the surface, resulting in the characteristic molehills. It feeds mainly on earthworms, but also on insects, centipedes and even mice and shrews. Its saliva contains toxins which paralyze earthworms in particular.
View Wikipedia Record: Talpa europaea

Infraspecies

Talpa europaea cinerea
Talpa europaea europaea
Talpa europaea velessiensis

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
7
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
31
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 15.28
EDGE Score: 2.79
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  93 grams
Birth Weight [1]  3 grams
Diet [2]  Carnivore (Invertebrates)
Diet - Invertibrates [2]  100 %
Forages - Ground [2]  100 %
Female Maturity [1]  6 months 2 days
Male Maturity [1]  6 months 2 days
Gestation [1]  28 days
Litter Size [1]  3
Litters / Year [1]  1
Maximum Longevity [3]  7 years
Nocturnal [4]  Yes
Snout to Vent Length [3]  6 inches (15 cm)
Weaning [1]  31 days

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

+ Click for partial list (100)Full list (102)

Ecosystems

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
Mediterranean Basin Algeria, Egypt, France, Greece, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Portugal, Spain, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey No

Prey / Diet

Agriotes gallicus[5]
Lasius niger (Black garden ant)[5]
Tipula oleracea (Common Crane Fly)[5]

Prey / Diet Overlap

Predators

Consumers

Range Map

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1de 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
♦ 2Hamish 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
♦ 3Nathan 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
♦ 4Myers, 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
♦ 5Ecology of Commanster
♦ 6Contribution to the study of the diet of four owl species (Aves, Strigiformes) from mainland and island areas of Greece, Haralambos Alivizatos, Vassilis Goutner and Stamatis Zogaris, Belg. J. Zool., 135 (2) : 109-118
♦ 7del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
♦ 8Nestling diet and parental provisioning behaviour in the Marsh harrier (Circus aeruginosus), Marcin BRZEZIŃSKI, Michał ŻMIHORSKI, Acta Zoologica Lituanica, 2009, Volumen 19, Numerus 2
♦ 9Assessing the diet of nestling Bearded Vultures: a comparison between direct observation methods, Antoni Margalida, Joan Bertran, and Jennifer Boudet, J. Field Ornithol. 76(1):40–45, 2005
♦ 10Food habits of Zamenis longissimus (Laurenti, 1768) (Reptilia: Serpentes: Colubridae) in Bieszczady (south-eastern Poland), BARTŁOMIEJ NAJBAR, Vertebrate Zoology 57 (1) 2007, 73-77
♦ 11Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
♦ 12International Flea Database
♦ 13Jorrit 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.
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
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