Southern red-backed voles are barely documented in West Virginia, just 59 records in open databases, which puts them near the bottom of recorded mammals for the state even though the species is presumed native and widespread across the region’s cool forest habitat.
A vole that needs a mossy, damp forest floor
This species keeps to cool, moist ground with plenty of fallen logs, moss, and deep leaf litter, conditions found in the high Allegheny forests around Monongahela National Forest and in shaded, north-facing hollows farther south and east, including wooded slopes near New River Gorge and Harpers Ferry. It doesn’t turn up in dry, open, or heavily disturbed ground, and a thin record count here says more about how rarely anyone spots a small vole under a rotting log than about how many actually live here.
Fungi, not just greens, on the menu
Unlike most West Virginia rodents, the red-backed vole eats a lot of fungus, including species that grow underground on tree roots, along with lichens and green plants. In doing so it spreads fungal spores through the forest floor, a small but real link between this vole and the health of the trees growing above it.
Status in West Virginia
NatureServe ranks the southern red-backed vole S4, apparently secure, and it is native to West Virginia, despite the small number of confirmed records so far.
Full species profile
