Mammals of the WorldSilver Mountain Vole
Alticola argentatus
- Order
- Rodentia
- Family
- Cricetidae
- Genus
- Alticola
- IUCN status
- LC
- Distribution
- Kazakhstan|Tajikistan|Kyrgyzstan|Uzbekistan|Afghanistan|Pakistan|India|China
- Realm
- Palearctic
About this species
- Diet
- Fibrous plant material; stores food for winter
- Habitat
- Rock piles, talus slopes and scree in high mountains
- Range
- Mountains of Central Asia to Tibet and the Himalaya
- Litter size
- Normally three litters a year
The silver mountain vole is a rodent with a silver-grey coat, long whiskers, rootless high-crowned molars and an angular skull. Colour varies from bright yellow to dark brown, apparently following dryness rather than altitude. The almost hairless tail is 32–51% of the body length, white in light animals and clearly two-coloured in dark ones. The ever-growing molars suit a fibrous diet (Wikipedia, general species account).
It lives in high mountains of Central Asia, from the Saur Mountains in the north-east to the Kugitang Range in the west, and south to Tibet and the Himalaya. It builds nesting burrows in the rocks of talus slopes and scree, with soft spherical nests of plant debris, and forages in autumn to stock food for winter. Normally three litters are born a year, and on southern foothill slopes at 900–1,300 m it has been seen to breed in winter (Wikipedia, general species account).
Description: Wildlife of India guide, Wildlife of Everywhere (wildlifeofeverywhere.com); general species information paraphrased from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)