Maryland’s 13 records of the star-nosed mole are scattered across 11 counties, from Garrett in the mountain west to Worcester on the coastal plain, and no county holds more than 2. A spread that wide with numbers that low is typical of this animal: it tunnels through wet ground out of sight, so people almost never see one unless it blunders onto a path or a cat brings it home. The breadth of the map is the real information; the thinness mostly measures how hidden the mole is.
A nose built for wet ground
The star, 22 fleshy pink rays around the nostrils, is a touch organ that lets this mole identify prey faster than any other mammal measured. It hunts aquatic insects, worms, and small water life along marshes, streams, and soggy meadows, and it swims and dives well, even under winter ice. Maryland’s named sites fit that life exactly: Blackwater’s vast Dorchester County marshes, with the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad park record coming from the same wet country, plus Eastern Neck’s shoreline and Shad Landing’s Pocomoke River lowlands.
No season, and a steady grade
The dated records land in eight different months, March through December, matching an animal that stays active all year, tunneling under snow and swimming under ice. NatureServe ranks the species S4 in Maryland, apparently secure. Thirteen records in two and a half decades is a documentation problem, not a rarity verdict.
