The Common Dormouse
The common or hazel dormouse, Muscardinus avellanarius L. 1758, is a small rodent specialising in living in woodlands. It is an excellent climber and capable of leaping from branch to branch or reaching fruit and nuts at the ends of the thinnest twigs. In fact it rarely comes down to the ground, where it would be vulnerable to predators.
Dormice eat a variety of flowers, fruit, seeds and nuts. Their particular favorites are hazel nuts and blackberries. They will also eat aphids and caterpillars when fruit and nuts are in short supply. Many of these foods are only available for a short season, so dormice need a woodland with many different food-plants, so as one food supply is finished they can move on to another. Dormice are nocturnal, spending the night foraging for food , and the day asleep in a secure nest.
Perhaps their best known habit is hibernation. There is very little food available to them in the winter, so they sleep through the cold months, living off their stores of body fat.In the autumn they eat as much as they can and put on a thick layer of fat; before entering hibernation a dormouse can double its body weight. During hibernation the heartbeat and breathing slow right down, and the body temperature drops to only a few degrees above freezing.
Dormice are slow breeders, unlike many other rodents. Each female has a litter of babies during the summer. Some years she will have only one litter, but in a good year she may have a second litter in early autumn. Each litter averages 4 or 5 babies. Dormice make good mothers, and she will look after her young for several weeks after weaning, helping them find their way around their woodland home.
The dormouse was once found in woodlands all over England and Wales, but in recent decades it has disappeared from several northern counties and is now only common in the south-west. The last known dormouse record from Cheshire is in 1910 near Nantwich. The reason for this decline is mainly the loss of the woodlands in which they lived. Loss of hedgerows, which dormice can use as corridors to travel between woods, has also contributed, as have changes in woodland management methods.
There are two species of dormouse found in Britain, but the hazel dormouse is the only native species. The edible dormouse Glis glis is an introduction and is only found in woodlands in the Chilterns. There are several more species of dormouse in Europe. For more information on dormice visit the Dormouse Hollow.
You can help the dormouse project by Sponsoring a Dormouse Nest Box.
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