Wood mouse

Description

The wood mouse belongs to the smaller species of the genus Apodemus. The ears are relatively large, the eyes very large and clearly protruding. The snout-vent length is 80-110 mm, the tail length 70-115 mm, the length of the hind feet 20.0-23.5 mm and the ear length 15-20 mm. The animals weigh 13-36 g, mostly 18-25 g. The coat is yellowish to brownish grey on top, with a reddish brown overcoat on older animals. The underpart is dirty white, the demarcation to the upperpart colouring is not very clear. The thoracic pattern is absent or only a yellowish brown, longitudinal oval spot. The hind feet have white hairs on top. There is a danger of confusion, especially with the yellow-necked mouse.

Habitat

Contrary to its name, the wood mouse inhabits mainly fringing biotopes of the agricultural landscape in most of its range, especially hedges, fallow land, ditch margins and water banks, but also parks and gardens. In the north-east of the range, the species is largely restricted to these areas and at most inhabits very open, dry coniferous forests here. In the west and south of the range, wood mice also occur in closed upland forests. The main reason for the absence in forests in most of the range is apparently their extensive colonisation by the larger and more competitive yellow-necked mouse.

Wood mice often enter buildings and also use façade vegetation to get under the roof covering.

The text is a translation of an excerpt from Wikipedia (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldmaus). On wikipedia the text is available under a „Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike“ licence. Status: 25 August 2021