Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Sometimes nothing
goes your way, and you just have to accept it. What next?
Let us talk voles. Despite their similar-sounding names,
they are not related to the moles, but rather are distant cousins to some of
the mouse-named rodents, and close relatives to the hamster-named ones. Pause.
Yes, we have talked about moles in the recent past, and we
did mention voles – maybe – when we have talked about mice much earlier. While
voles and mice are similar-looking – both are small rodents with long, hairless
tails, the voles are less likely to be found inside human homes; they prefer
open spaces instead. Mice like those that surroundings that are cramped, with
plenty of nooks and crannies to hide in; voles – not so much.
…On the other hand, despite them not being related to moles and shrews, (remember, we have talked
about them?), voles prefer to dig tunnels to get around, while mice – not so
much. Consequently, despite being roughly the same size, voles are stockier than
the mice are; their eyes, ears and noses are smaller than those of the mice;
the shrews, since we’re talking comparisons here, also have small eyes and
ears, but their noses and snouts are skinny and elongated, almost like proboscises,
instead. That is not surprising – shrews, moles and co. do not have much in
common with rodents like mice and voles, aside from the latter being eaten by
the former, if the opportunity presents itself.
…However, just like moles, voles prefer to dig tunnels to
get around, as we have said above. Hence, the smaller eyes, ears and noses than
those of mice. That is not too surprising – the vole branch of the rodent
family also features such master diggers as the hamsters, which dig out
impressive burrows and tunnels underground. The marmots and the ground
squirrels, though, are precisely that – ground-dwelling cousins of the tree
squirrels; even the chipmunk, which looks like a small squirrel with a shorter
tail, is a very good digger – but then again, most rodents are.
Now the element of water – this gives most rodents some
pause. Not so the muskrat, which is also a vole cousin, and is the biggest
aquatic rodent after the beaver in the Northern Hemisphere. Of course, given just
how much bigger the beaver is, that is a relative second… not to mention that
the actual biggest rodent on the planet, the capybara, dwarfs both the beavers,
(there are two species of them – one American, the second European/Eurasian),
and the muskrat. Anything else?
Taxonomy, I suppose. The vole genera – and there are quite a
few of them – belong… well, yes, to the Cricetidae family, as do the New World
mice, rats, and similar rodents. The aforementioned hamsters belong to a
different subfamily, however – Cricetinae, while the voles belong to
Arvicolinae; the muskrat and the lemmings also belong to it.
Of them, the voles of the genus Arvicola deserve a mention, as they’re called ‘water voles’ for a
reason – they’re aquatic, even if they’re only distantly related to the
muskrat. They are the size of small rat, but are chubbier-looking, and are
better swimmers than the rats are, which is not surprising – rats are
generalists, while the water voles are specialists. There are animals that are called ‘water rats’ instead, but the European
species is the European water vole in
question, while the rest of those rodents live… mostly in Australia and Papua
New Guinea, having few things in common with the ‘true’ mice and rats, but some
species live in Africa as well as the New World. Of them, the Florida water
rat/round-tailed muskrat, (Neofiber
alleni), deserves a special mention, as it is too a cousin of the voles
& the ‘true’ muskrat, but, again, it belongs to its’ own ‘tribe’ in the
Arvicolinae subfamily.
…In the South America, the rodents that took to the water
are also members of the Cricetidae family, but they are more closely related to
the hamsters than voles instead. Are not evolution and rodents exciting?..
…Well, this is it for now – see you all soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment