The mole

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The mole

All about the mole

Omnipresent in our environment, the mole remains a mystery: many misconceptions still circulate about it. Remember:

You only get rid of the one you know best!

  • Burrowing mammal capable of lifting twenty times its own weight
  • Not present in Corsica, Ouessant and Ré
  • Oversized, backhoe-like front legs
  • A subtle sense of smell
  • Myopic, but sensitive to light intensity
  • Highly developed hearing, but invisible ears
  • A tail always in contact with the top of the gallery
  • A fine, velvet-like coat for progressing through narrow galleries
  • Lungs twice as large as normal, for breathing underground
  • She’s not a hemophiliac
  • You can’t drown it, because it swims underwater
  • It hates draughts, a fault we’re going to use to trap it.

Mole nest, located under the molehill

The Mole in Figures

A 12-hour fast kills it, which is why the mole stocks up on worms and stores them in a gallery near its nest.
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The average length of the gallery network varies from 200 to 250m, for a single mole!
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Depending on the amount of earthworms in your soil, there can be from 5 to 50 moles per hectare.
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Mole litters consist of 3 to 5 young Moles give birth in spring The young stay with their mother for about 1 month to nurse.
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The mole lives from 4 to 6 years, dying when its teeth are worn down by the abrasive sand in the soil.
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The enlarged shape of its forelimbs enables it to dig up to 20 metres of tunnels per day!
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The Mole in pictures