Massachusetts’s occurrence tallies for the hairy-tailed mole hold 168 records, most of them GBIF entries. What’s on file traces two different landscapes: the forested Worcester Plateau in central Massachusetts and the wooded reservations ringing the Boston Basin.
Well-drained ground over wet ground
The hairy-tailed mole needs workable, well-drained soil, and that’s exactly what the Worcester Plateau supplies: forested hills and reservoir-fed uplands where the ground rarely stays waterlogged. That’s a real split from the state’s other tunneling mole, the star-nosed mole, which favors the saturated marsh edges and streambanks this species avoids. Boston Basin’s wooded reservations, with their mix of hardwood cover and better-drained slopes, give the mole a second foothold closer to the city.
Two tunnels, one hidden life
This mole digs two kinds of tunnels: shallow runs just under the leaf litter that show up as raised ridges after rain, and deeper, permanent burrows it retreats to once the ground freezes or dries out. It hunts earthworms and insect larvae almost entirely underground, by touch and smell, rarely breaking the surface, which is a big part of why this mole is so easy to miss and still adds up to only 168 records statewide. Records climb sharply heading into early summer, when thawed, workable soil makes tunneling easiest, then fall off through the rest of the year.
Status in Massachusetts
NatureServe ranks the hairy-tailed mole S5, secure, and it’s native to Massachusetts. That rank fits a species tied to specific soil conditions rather than a rare one: it turns up wherever central and eastern Massachusetts forests offer workable, well-drained ground, even though most residents never see more than the ridge of a tunnel.
