Sunday, November 23, 2014

Three Little Redcoats and Some Others

Burgess Animal Book Chapter 17

In this chapter we get to know the voles a bit better, though it can be very confusing switching back and forth between Burgess's terminology and modern terminology (remember that Burgess doesn't use the term vole).  He calls all the animals in this chapter mice, though the first three are technically voles.

Also, I found a lot of discrepancy out there as to how to classify these animals.  I chose to stick with Kaufman and keep them in the order Rodentia, family Muridae, sub-family Arvicolinae.  I found a great article by Darren Naish published in this scientific american blog.  He had an image of a drawing comparing the sizes of several species from the subfamily Arvicolinae.  Our coloring page is based on this image.

Piney
Southern Red-Backed Vole (Clethrionomys gapperi)
1. He makes little tunnels just under the surface in the edge of the green forest.
2. He does damage in young orchards by cutting off roots and stripping bark.

Woodland Vole (Microtus pinetorum)
1. He is a thrifty burrower.
2. He lives far form the homes of men in the green forest.

Rufous
Red Tree Vole (Arborimus longicaudus)
1. He lives wholly in the tall trees of the West (such as Redwoods).
2. He eats the thick parts of needles and the bark of tender twigs.



Burgess briefly introduces Bigear the "Rock Mouse" along with the "Beach Mouse" at the end of the chapter, and the best I can figure is that they are both types of Deermice, a term used to describe those belonging to the genus Peromyscus (like Whitefoot from chapter 15).  We didn't do separate pages for these two mice since I'm not entirely sure which ones they are :)

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