The bizarre hairy-tailed mole, digger extraordinaire/Jim McCormac
Learn about the hairy-tailed mole hiding in Ohio woods
June 7, 2026
NATURE
Jim McCormac
Indeed, I would be surprised if many readers are aware that this odd beast even exists. There are three species of moles in Ohio, and only the common and widespread eastern mole is known to most. This is the little mammal that tunnels in your yard, leaving telltale ridges of dirt in its wake.
Eastern moles prefer open country, while the protagonist of this column, the hairy-tailed mole, favors wooded habitats. While inspecting mole tails is not perhaps the easiest task, these two species are easily separated by this feature. One has a furred tail; the other does not.
The holy grail for mole-seekers is the utterly bizarre star-nosed mole. This alien-looking creature looks like a sea anemone was welded to the tip of its snout. It occurs primarily in the northeast corner of Ohio and favors wet sites.
When I finally clap eyes on one, it’ll make the news, at least in this publication. Hairy-tailed moles are common in appropriate habitats, and that means they are most frequent in eastern Ohio where forests are still commonplace. It probably is in larger forested tracts in central Ohio, such as Blendon Woods and Highbanks metro parks.
Prior to European settlement, the hairy-tailed mole was certainly the most common mole in the state, as Ohio was about 95% woodland in those days. While I would like to think I am a seasoned outdoorsman, natural philosopher and wildlife photographer with many decades of experience, I can report that finding and photographing a mole is not a simple task. And regarding the image that accompanies this column, I cheated a bit.
Moles have extremely high metabolisms and occasionally seem to just detonate. Three times now, I have come across dead hairy-tailed moles that were fresh as could be, laying on the ground. Without benefit of an autopsy, I suspect they just imploded, perhaps victims of a heart attack. Not one to let an opportunity go to waste, I dug a small tunnel in the leafy humus and positioned the mole in the tunnel, as if it was just emerging from the ground. That produced the image that you see here.
But my staged photo op is accurate. Hairy-tailed moles spend much time in the soil’s upper strata and frequently forage in the leaf litter. Two years ago, while leading a field trip in the vast Shawnee State Forest in Scioto County, I caught a glimpse of one scuffling through leafy litter and managed to pounce and grab it so my group could ooh and aah over the weird mammal.
After a brief learning experience, we released it unharmed. It takes a close inspection to truly appreciate a mole’s incredible adaptations for a fossorial (burrowing) lifestyle. An elongated tubular body helps with efficiently slipping through narrow tunnels and fissures.
There are no external ears to impede progress. Their forelimbs are rotated to facilitate digging, and my oh my, those “hands”!
Imagine if you had feet larger than your head with toenails as long as your legs. An incredibly silky pelage sheds dirt like water hitting wax. When most of your time is spent in subterranean gloom, there’s little need for eyes, and those have devolved to tiny pinpricks.
Moles essentially see only light and dark – they are nearly blind. They compensate for sightlessness with incredibly acute tactile sensors known as Elmer’s organs. The elongate snout is beset with these, which allow the mole to feel its food.
To wax anthropomorphic, a hunting mole is a raging beast, a mammalian psychopath storming through the soil’s upper strata overpowering, killing and eating virtually anything that it can capture. It’s probably a good thing for us that they are only 6 inches long and weigh only 2 ounces. Were moles the size of badgers, we’d possibly be in a heap of trouble.
Most of their food is worms, beetle grubs, fly larvae, slugs and other such invertebrate fare. Moles are voracious eaters, and captives have been documented consuming three times their bodyweight in earthworms daily.
In prime habitats loaded with prey, they likely eat even more than that. As a point of comparison, a 180-pound man would have to eat 720 McDonald’s quarter pounders daily to keep up. Dr. Ornish would disapprove.
Even though hardly anyone knows anything about moles, or that they even exist, these mammals are incredibly important ecosystem engineers. In addition to being major mitigators preventing overpopulation of various invertebrate populations, their labyrinths of tunnels are used by many other organisms. These include mice, shrews, voles, snakes and salamanders.
Just because something is mostly out of sight and out of mind doesn’t mean it isn’t important.
Further ahead
I am giving a pictorial talk based on my book, "Wild Ohio: The Best of Our Natural Heritage," for the Worthington Public Library on June 17 at 7 p.m. at the Griswold Center, 777 North High St. in Worthington.
To register, visit worthingtonlibraries.org
Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first and third Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at jimmccormac.blogspot.com.
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