Fig. 24. Distribution of the Townsend mole, Scapanus townsendii, in Washington.
According to [Wight] (1928: 24), [Scheffer] (1922: 11) and [Moore] (1933: 39), the food of this large mole includes earthworms and ground-inhabiting insects, insect larvae, spiders, centipedes, flesh, and small amounts of soft vegetation. [Scheffer] (1922: 10) found that the large mole breeds in February and produces from two to four young at a litter, with an average of three.
Scapanus orarius
Coast mole
Description.—The coast mole is almost identical with the larger mole in form of body but is smaller. Head and body are about 5-1/4 and tail about 1-1/2 inches in length.
The coast mole occupies all of the territory inhabited by the Townsend mole and ranges slightly farther northward, southward and eastward. However it does not range east of the boundaries of the three Pacific Coast states or British Columbia.
The mounds and workings of the coast mole are smaller than those of the Townsend mole and consequently are less noticed. It seems less prone to make numerous mounds, a pace apart, than the larger mole, and burrows tend to extend deeper in the ground. Upthrust ridges are less commonly built by orarius than by townsendii.