New County Records for the Eastern Mole, Scalopus aquaticus (Soricimorpha: Talpidae) and Woodland Vole, Microtus pinetorum (Rodentia: Cricetidae), in Oklahoma

The eastern mole, Scalopus aquaticus (L.) is a robust insectivore that ranges from the northeastern United States west to the Midwest as far as southeastern Wyoming and south through Texas to northern Tamaulipas, Mexico; it is also found in eastern Canada (Yates and Schmidly 1978; Schmidly 1994; Reid 2006). In Oklahoma, S. aquaticus occurs over most of the state where suitable soils allow extensive burrowing (Caire et al. 1998); however, there are apparently no records for eight counties of the state (Fig. 1). The woodland vole, Microtus pinetorum is a small mouse found throughout the eastern and midwestern U.S. and extreme southern Ontario, Canada, from southern Maine southwest to central Texas and southern Louisiana (Smolen 1981; Reid 2006). In Oklahoma, M. pinetorum is found predominantly in the eastern one-half of the state (Caire et al. 1998). Here, we document new county records for S. aquaticus and M. pinetorum in southeastern Oklahoma. On 6 August 2014, a sub-adult male S. aquaticus (total length 125 mm, length of tail 21 mm, length of hind foot 20 mm) was collected alive by hand from underneath a rock in its unexposed burrow on the Eastern Oklahoma State Campus off North Hill Street in Wilburton, Latimer County (34.915673oN, 95.327506oW). There were no obvious runs (burrow system) atop the ground. Habitat was a mowed lawn dominated with an overstory of oaks (Quercus spp.) and pines (Pinus spp.). The voucher specimen (alcoholic) was deposited in the Henderson State University Mammal Collection (HSU), Arkadelphia, Arkansas as HSU 706. Since the seminal publication of Caire et al. (1989), 10 additional county records for S. aquaticus have been documented as follows: Alfalfa (McDonald et al. 2006), Cimarron (Dalquest et al. 1990), Cotton (Stangl et al. 1992), Delaware (Braun and Revelez 2005), Jefferson (Stangl et al. 1992), Kiowa (Braun and Revelez 2005), Roger Mills (Braun and Revelez 2005), Texas (Roehrs et al. 2008), Tillman (McDonald et al. 2006), and Washita (Clark and Tumlison 1992). Prior to the present record in southeastern Oklahoma, there was a five-county hiatus in the range of S. aquaticus with noticeable distributional gaps in Atoka, Coal, Choctaw, Haskell and Latimer counties (Caire et al. 1989, p. 103) (Fig. 1). It is unknown why the eastern mole has not been previously reported from these counties since moist alluvial and sandy soils are present as well as Baird’s pocket gophers, Geomys breviceps who also use these soils (see Connior et al. 2013). In addition, south of Choctaw County, Oklahoma, across the Red River in Texas, vouchers of eastern moles have not yet been collected in Fannin, Lamar and Red River counties (Schmidly 1994). We

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