The mole is perhaps the most famous animal that digs holes in its habitat. These small and almost blind laborers are able to make up to hundreds of holes and up to a kilometer of tunnels per day.
Moles can be found everywhere from Europe to Siberia itself. Their main habitats are forest edges, fields, vegetable gardens and orchards. Those places where the soil is soft and pliable enough. They only shun sandy soils and the proximity of groundwater, although they overcome small open reservoirs without much difficulty, crossing them. But it is still not easy to see moles, because they practically do not get to the surface. A sign that a mole has settled on your site will, of course, be the pits and small mounds that have appeared with the earth neatly folded along the edges.
The mole is one of the most voracious mammals; it can eat more of its own weight per day. The reason for this appetite is an accelerated metabolism.
Underground kingdom
The mole, as you know, lives in the ground, for penetration into the thickness of which it digs holes in a helical manner, screwing itself into the ground and raking it off with its paws. The paws are perfectly adapted for this, they have huge (one third of the paw) claws and powerful muscles.
The sight of these animals is almost absent due to the fact that they spend their whole life in underground passages, rarely getting out to the surface, where they become clumsy and helpless. Another thing is in the land, where they lay numerous passages, which have their own system and purpose. These passages are divided into residential and forage ones: moles walk through residential ones from the nest to the aft compartments or to the watering place. The foraging areas serve as traps for worms that moles feed on. But the main structure is the nest, which is located at a depth of up to two meters in a sheltered place, under stones, buildings or tree roots. The nest is cozy in a sense: the mole lays it out with leaves and dry grass, brings feathers and mosses.
Thus, all passages form a well-coordinated system of galleries with passages 5 centimeters in diameter, with aft compartments located very close to the ground. Those holes in the ground that are visible to the human eye actually only serve to throw away excess soil.
Year-round hard work
Moles are active throughout the year; in winter they can lay their passages even under the snow or deeper, where the soil does not freeze.
Constant movement and aeration of the earth is a condition for the survival of a mole that breathes ordinary air; for the same reason, moles do not settle on clay soils.
Adult moles are usually attached to their sites, they do not change them throughout their lives and usually always return to them, even from very long distances. Young moles leave their parental nests at a distance of up to two kilometers and begin an independent life there. Moles do not live in pairs, they connect only during mating games, after the female becomes pregnant, the male leaves her nest.
