White-footed mouse
Peromyscus leucopus
2
Nom français: Souris à pattes blanches
2
- Fur mostly brown to brown-red , belly and legs are white.
- VERY similar to deer mouse! Both species are widespread and common.
- They sometimes use birds nests to build their own, usually nests that are located in the shrub border of fields or country roads such as the ones of song sparrows or catbird. If the nest is piled up with a dome of extra shredded material rather than cup shapes, it means it has been "renovated" by a mouse.
- The nest is built by the female before the youngs are born, putting fluffy material into a cavity (under rocks, logs, small burrows, birds nests, woodpecker wholes, etc). They seem to prefer to make their nests above the ground in tree cavities or birds nests. Look out for mice poo the next time you see a woodpecker hole!
- Female mice have 2-4 litters per year.
- Mostly active at night. Not that much is known about the social arrangement of mice, but it seems like adults are mostly solitary.
- They mostly move on the surface of the ground and can climb trees. I read that they do not dig burrows or build tunnels in the grass, but use the ones made by voles or other small mammals... but I wonder if it is always true. What do you think?
- They usually gallop (hop) and their tracks are in a four-print pattern (kind of like a mini squirrel track +sometimes the central mark left by the tail) but could merge in a two-print pattern like the voles.
- Eat fruits and seeds in the spring and summer, and also a lot of insects! In the cold season they eat nuts and seeds from trees such as oak, beech, .walnut, hazelnut.
- Mice have food cache throughout the year but they are most used during the winter. When they store the nuts, they usually take the outer husk off but leave it in the inner shell. Probably to avoid storing insects from the husk in the cache? Or to avoid taking up too much space?
Fontes e Créditos
- (c) Patrick Coin, alguns direitos reservados (CC BY-NC-SA), http://www.flickr.com/photos/42264328@N00/4691331213
- (c) Alice Roy-Bolduc, alguns direitos reservados (CC BY-SA)
