The cat caught...what? Mole? Vole?

17 years ago

What did my cat catch? I have a suburban yard: lots of bunnies and squirrels, raccoons at night, possums:

anything else is good at hiding.

My mostly indoor cat, who normally only is out while I am gardening, caught something. She is a lousy hunter and is front declawed so this is a once-a-year event. She tracks things but they hide in the leaves snickering at her. I came in from gardening last Saturday afternoon. A few minutes after I came in she came to the closed patio door. My husband went to let her in then saw she had something in her mouth and called me. I only saw it for a second before she realized we might take it away from her and bounded off again. She was holding it in the middle of the back, with it's nose and tail hanging down. At first glance we thought it was a mouse, but the fur was dark, maybe black. I think it may have been a little bit bigger than a mouse. The tail did have fur, so it wasn't a young possum. The nose or snout may have been a little pointed.

Baby mole? Vole? I've never seen either. No trace of tunnels. What else?

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Comments (11)

bean_counter_z4
17 years ago
I might be wrong but I think mice have the longest tails. Voles med length and moles stubby. Hard to indentify as it is being carried across the yard at 30mph. lol
donn_
17 years ago
Vole:

{{gwi:277148}}

Mole:

{{gwi:277149}}
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tiffy_z5_6_can
17 years ago
OMG,
That is one huge mole Donn!! We have them in our gardens and they try to get in the basement in the winter but the cats get them. Never seen one that BIG!!!
tracey_nj6
17 years ago
Possibly a shrew? My darling furball, also mostly an indoor cat and not a good hunter (won't even chase the darn squirrels) got out one night. She tried to bolt in the house after only being outside for about a minute, with a strange animal in her mouth. Unfortunately, she punctured it's backside, and it did die, but I had gotten a few blurry pictures. Someone here on GW identified it for me. I'd never seen one before that incident, and haven't seen one since. For the life of me, I can't find the photo, either on my HD or Photobucket account.
linnea56 (zone 5b Chicago)
Original Author
17 years ago
Thanks for the pics! Better than I foung googling.

Rules out the mole: those digging paws are pretty prominent. Shrew I hadn't thought of.

How does a vole differ from a mouse? In appearance. Most mice I've seen have lighter fur on their bellies, this creature did not, that I could see. Fur was darker than any mouse I've seen.
cloud_9
17 years ago
Maybe it was some child's escaped pet mouse (or the progeny thereof). They come in black. Perhaps that would explain your cat's ability to catch it too.
Deb
oldroser
17 years ago
Voles look like mice but are black. Probably was a vole.
They are very destructive because they eat plant roots and bulbs. GOOD kitty!
remy_gw
17 years ago
Hi,
This page shows a few shrews.
Remy

Here is a link that might be useful: Shrews
goodhors
17 years ago
Mice have long tails. We have two kinds, the gray mouse and the brown with white belly. Brown ones, Deer mice come in pairs, if you kill two, they are gone. Grays, House mice are non-pairing, come in quantities. I hate seeing the gray ones, you never know if you got them all.

Voles here are mice sized, with very short tails, like Hamsters. Also come in quantities, but I have never had them come into the house. Barn cat catches a bunch of them. Look very like mice, just no tails.

Shrews are tiny, often dark, about half the size of a mouse. Maybe as large as a lady's thumb. Terrible fighters, will kill mice and eat them. I look at the funny noses to see if they are shrews. Some are star shaped noses, or other wise different than mice. Usually the eyes are also very small, compared to mice with big eyes.

A full sized Mole is about hand sized with the front feet looking like he wears baseball mitts!! Way oversized front feet to allow lots of dirt moving very quickly. You might mix him up with a small rat, but not a mouse. Much bigger than mice. They also might have a funny shaped nose to help them locate earthworms in the dirt and aid in moving dirt as they tunnel along. I don't think they kill mice like the shrews. My dog is more likely to dig up a Mole and flip it around to kill it. One small dog with big ears will track the digging mole, while the other large dog does the digging to find Mole. I get the corpse as my present or find it later in the yard. The cat doesn't work that hard, she only chases things above the ground.
linnea56 (zone 5b Chicago)
Original Author
17 years ago
I think I've ruled out mole: I did see the paws and they weren't mole-like.

I'm still stumped between shrew and vole. It was black or almost black, had a pointy nose, was maybe a little bigger than most of the mice I see. But the tail was not noticeably short: average mousy kind.

I did some reserch based on the links provided. I hope I can find out because now I'm worried about my garden if it was a vole! If it was a shrew then I can be happy if they are around: apparently they are carnivores and really like to eat slugs. I have had a lot of slugs with all the rain and could use some help. I did see the cat tracking this critter for a long time under some low-growing perennials, before she caught it and came to the door; I don't know if that's a "lifestyle" clue. (the cat won't eat slugs: I've offered them to her. Even if I make them move, she treats them like a pebble. Bugs paying dead, that's another story.)
reginacw
17 years ago
Shrews are tiny, aren't they?