Formed in 2009, the Archive Team (not to be confused with the archive.org Archive-It Team) is a rogue archivist collective dedicated to saving copies of rapidly dying or deleted websites for the sake of history and digital heritage. The group is 100% composed of volunteers and interested parties, and has expanded into a large amount of related projects for saving online and digital history.
Hey, it's a mole! Cool! A dead one. Aw, too bad. Considering I've probably only ever seen one other mole in my life (it was dead, too, in the middle of a trail), I started wondering how I knew this was a mole. I suspect many people would be able to recognize a picture of a mole without ever having seen one in person. Why is that? Children's books? Nature shows? Sure, I'd be able to recognize a panda or an alligator if I ever saw one firsthand. But, moles? They're not exactly wildly popular animals.
Then, the question for Nature ID becomes, "What kind of mole is it?" This was a little challenging to research. Most online pictures of moles are dead, and interestingly they all look like they've been licked by a canine or something. I don't know why they have a wet licked look about them. And why do they seem to go above ground to die? I was fortunate to have found the kind with unusually large front feet to distinguish it from the numerous shrews. There are 7 spp. of moles in North America. Of those 7, 4 are found in CA. Townsend's mole (Scapanus townsendii) and coast mole (Scapanus orarius) are found along the northern CA coast. S. latimanus has the widest range in CA, but part of Monterey County is the southern-most area for shrew-moles (Neurotrichus gibbsii), which has a longer tail. As a side note, in these scientific names here I've linked to sibr.com, a database design site which for some reason contains the exact compilation of PDFs found on the California Wildlife Habitat Relationships website in association with the California Department of Fish and Game. If you want to see larger range maps, select the common name on the CWHR site. For an extensive sp. account published by the American Society of Mammalogists, check out Smith College>PDFs>No. 666 (it doesn't look like it links to anything, but it opens up a PDF to the publication). While moles are reported to eat gastropods, beetles, and earthworms (see pub No. 666), it seems they have been targeted as an enemy of the gardener, like gophers. Poor moles.
Then, the question for Nature ID becomes, "What kind of mole is it?" This was a little challenging to research. Most online pictures of moles are dead, and interestingly they all look like they've been licked by a canine or something. I don't know why they have a wet licked look about them. And why do they seem to go above ground to die? I was fortunate to have found the kind with unusually large front feet to distinguish it from the numerous shrews. There are 7 spp. of moles in North America. Of those 7, 4 are found in CA. Townsend's mole (Scapanus townsendii) and coast mole (Scapanus orarius) are found along the northern CA coast. S. latimanus has the widest range in CA, but part of Monterey County is the southern-most area for shrew-moles (Neurotrichus gibbsii), which has a longer tail. As a side note, in these scientific names here I've linked to sibr.com, a database design site which for some reason contains the exact compilation of PDFs found on the California Wildlife Habitat Relationships website in association with the California Department of Fish and Game. If you want to see larger range maps, select the common name on the CWHR site. For an extensive sp. account published by the American Society of Mammalogists, check out Smith College>PDFs>No. 666 (it doesn't look like it links to anything, but it opens up a PDF to the publication). While moles are reported to eat gastropods, beetles, and earthworms (see pub No. 666), it seems they have been targeted as an enemy of the gardener, like gophers. Poor moles.
