Garden dormouse

Description

Garden dormice are medium-sized dormice. The snout-vent length is 100-170 mm, the tail length 80-150 mm, the length of the hind feet 22-32 mm and the ear length 20-26 mm. The animals weight 45-140 g, before hibernation up to 210 g. The coat colour on the upperparts ranges from reddish brown to grey with a reddish brown tinge, flanks and underpart are white. A striking black head pattern extends from the rearmost whiskers over the eye area to behind and below the ears. There is a white patch in front of the ears and there is often dark pigmentation on the shoulders. The body-length, hairy tail has a long-haired terminal tassel and is greyish brown on the proximal half and blackish brown on the distal half. The underpart of the tail is white. The front feet have four pads, the hind feet six.

Habitat

Although the German name suggests otherwise, garden dormice live mainly in deciduous and coniferous forests, especially on rocky ground; they also inhabit orchards and home gardens. The animals occasionally inhabit raised hides and isolated buildings.

The text is a translation of an excerpt from Wikipedia (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartenschläfer). On wikipedia the text is available under a „Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike“ licence. Status: 19 August 2021