Call of the Mole Vole

There are over 170 recognised species of vole. The exact number is hard to determine because new species keep being described and not all will necessarily stand the test of time but we can certainly say that there are a lot. Although we might typically think of voles as being all rather similar to one another - small, mouse-like animals with short tails and rounded snouts - within such a large group there is inevitably some variation.

Most obviously different from regular voles are the giant species. Although genetic data shows us that these are voles, in the sense of being offshoots of the vole family tree rather than something distinct, we don't normally refer to them as such in English. Instead, we call them "lemmings" or, in the case of the very largest species, "muskrats". To avoid potential confusion, in more scientific language we would therefore use the taxonomic name when referring to the subfamily as a whole and say that voles, lemmings, and muskrats collectively are "arvicolines".