Mouse (Wood) - Overview

Order: Rodentia

Family: Muridae

Species: Apodemus sylvaticus

IUCN Status: Least Concern

Population Trend: stable

Distribution: throughout the British Isles and Europe, except for northern Scandinavia, Finland and north-western USSR.

Habitat: woodlands, fields, hedgerows, moorlands, mountain-sides, sand-dunes, scrub land, gardens.

Description: sandy-brown above, white below. Large eyes and ears, long tail.

Length: head & body 80 - 100mm tail 69 - 110mm

Weight: 14 - 28g.
      
Life-span: usually up to a year; rarely more than two years.

Food: seeds, fruits, buds & other vegetation, invertebrates.

The wood mouse, also known as the long-tailed field mouse, though rarely seen as it is nocturnal, is probably Britain's most numerous mammal. A close relative of the wood mouse is the yellow-necked mouse (Apodemus flavicollis) which looks like a large, sandy-coloured wood mouse with a distinct yellow collar; it occurs only in the south of Britain & Wales and is much rarer than the wood mouse.