Townsend’s Mole

On 9 October 2019, Erika and I found a Townsend’s Mole dead on the road. Not wanting to pass up a new species for my blog, I took these photos. Note the almost black dosal fur, the large front, digging feet, and relatively long, naked, white tail. We were in the correct habitat for this spevcies—coniferous forest rather than a meadow or a deciduous woodland. We were hiking along a restricted gravel road in the hills west of Olympia. Traffic is minimal here, so rather than an automobile strike, I think some mammalian or avian predator must have dropped the mole.