The Mysterious Mole

The European mole, our mole, is in evolutionary terms an ancient mammal. It is related to shrews and hedgehogs and part of its mystery is that it is subterranean and therefore rarely seen. 

The burrowing mole, once known as ‘mouldywarp the earth thrower’, is extremely active and quick in its movement and drains and aerates the soil. They work their tunnels throughout day and night, pausing for rests, and eating insects that gardeners regard as pests.

Lewis-Stempel, farmer and naturalist, describes them as ‘little parcels of muscle wrapped in black velvet’. They are barrel-shaped, about 17cm long with a head terminating in a remarkable snout studded with whisker-like structures that alert it to movement in the soil. The snout is stiffened with bone and cartilage for boring.

In 2022 an important scientific study revealed that the mole, which does not hibernate, is able to survive a harsh winter by shrinking its skull in response to low temperatures. It saves energy by doing this and allows it to endure extreme cold. As the climate warms up its skull expands. By studying this phenomenon scientists hope to benefit humans by discovering new treatments for conditions that affect the growth and health of our bones, including osteoporosis.

The anatomy of the mole reveals its perfect adaption to its habitat. Excess earth from its tunnelling (as it tracks down snails, worms and insect larvae) is pushed up with the mole’s marvellous shovelling forepaws into molehills, connecting us to the teeming life below ground.They can raise soil twenty times their bodyweight and this fine earth makes good compost. The forelimbs have immense strength and join to the sternum with strong pectoral muscles that spread the ‘hand’ into a shovel shape with five digits, pink and almost human, with sharp claws. In comparison the hind limbs are weak. The short tail is held erect to gauge the height of the tunnel.

The eyes of this little animalare tiny but can see changes in light levels. The dark velvet fur can lie in all directions and allows the mole fast, smooth passage through its tunnels. Their blood has a special form of haemoglobin which means that they can tolerate higher carbon dioxide levels than other mammals.

The mole’shome-base is often referred to as a fortress. There are usually runs branching from a central node but apparently no two constructions are alike. There are some blind alleys, not for confusing enemies but to hold excavated earth. Some tunnels are larders for collections of worms.

They are solitary animals and the nests they build seem to be primarily constructed by female moles for raising their young. They are lined with dried grass and leaves and are safe places for the young to be born, pink and furless, fed on their mother’s milk. They are ready to begin their separate lives in five or six weeks.If you see a mole above ground in late summer it may be a young mole leaving home and about to begin constructing its own network of tunnels at a distance from where it was reared.

When necessarythe mole is a good swimmer. I saw one a few years ago paddling through flooded meadows in Forncett St Mary using its forepaws in a form of breast- stroke.

According to Sempel mole-catchers in the 1920’s wore moleskin breeches and so did some miners, huntsmen and shooters. The beautiful coat of the mole is dense and soft with very strong supple skin. Millions of moleskins a year in this period were shipped to the USA and made up into high fashion capes and jackets.

Mole-catchers continue to exist because some people consider moles as pests. They disrupt order in the garden and offend a sense of control. As the RHS tell us they do not feed on plants, any damage to them is incidental to their burrowing. Another view of the mole is to consider them as mining engineers of brilliance, as pest controllers and as archaeologists bringing ancient evidence of human dwellings to the surface. Interesting plants colonise mole excavations.

Even now some mole-catchers in Norfolk hang mole corpses on fences as a grim ritual advertisement of their trade. I saw this in Tasburgh recently and felt despair like the poet John Clare two hundred years ago.

“While I see the little mouldywharps hang sweeing to the wind

On the only aged willow that in all the field remains

And nature hides her face where they’re sweeing in their chains

And in a silent murmuring complains.”

(John Clare, The Shepherds Calender, 1827.

 

November 1025