Massachusetts’s occurrence tallies for the star-nosed mole hold 247 records, the richest count among the state’s moles and shrews, tracing wet ground in three very different corners of the state.
Wherever water sits on the ground
This mole needs saturated soil, marsh edges, and slow streams to hunt in, and Massachusetts supplies that at both ends of the state: the rocky, lake-fed streams of the Berkshire Hills around Mount Greylock and October Mountain, and the floodplain wetlands of the Connecticut River Valley farther east. The wooded wetlands and river corridors of the Boston Basin fill in the middle. Wherever the ground stays wet, this is the mole to find.
A hunter that can smell underwater
Twenty-two fleshy touch rays ring its nose, feeding it so much sensory information that it can identify and grab prey faster than most animals can react to the same touch. It’s also a strong swimmer, hunting aquatic insects, worms, and small crustaceans below the surface by blowing out and re-inhaling small bubbles of air to sample scent underwater, a trick almost no other mammal manages. Records rise into late spring and again in early fall, tracking the wetter stretches of the year rather than one narrow breeding season.
Status in Massachusetts
NatureServe ranks the star-nosed mole S5, secure, and it’s native to Massachusetts. Draining wetlands or cutting off stream corridors is the real risk to this species, not any statewide scarcity: as long as Massachusetts keeps its marshes, floodplains, and mountain streams connected, the mole has what it needs.
