Brandt's vole, also known as the steppe vole, is a species of rodent

Rodent

Rodentia is an order of mammals also known as rodents, characterised by two continuously growing incisors in the upper and lower jaws which must be kept short by gnawing....

 in the family Cricetidae

Cricetidae

The Cricetidae are a family of rodents in the large and complex superfamily Muroidea. It includes true hamsters, voles, lemmings, and New World rats and mice...

.
It is found in China, Mongolia and Russia.

Morphology

Brandt's vole is about one hundred and fifty milliimetres long with a tail length of up to thirty five millimetres. Its ears are small and the short fur is a uniform sandy-brown colour, paler underneath. The tail is entirely brown and there are dense hairs on the hind part of the feet.

Distribution and habitat

Brandt's vole is found in Nei Mongol

Inner Mongolia

Inner Mongolia is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in the northern region of the country. Inner Mongolia shares an international border with the countries of Mongolia and the Russian Federation...

, Jilin

Jilin

Jilin , is a province of the People's Republic of China located in the northeastern part of the country. Jilin borders North Korea and Russia to the east, Heilongjiang to the north, Liaoning to the south, and Inner Mongolia to the west...

, and Hebei

Hebei

' is a province of the People's Republic of China in the North China region. Its one-character abbreviation is "" , named after Ji Province, a Han Dynasty province that included what is now southern Hebei...

 provinces in north-east China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

, in Mongolia

Mongolia

Mongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...

 and southern Transbaikal

Transbaikal

Transbaikal, Trans-Baikal, Transbaikalia , or Dauria is a mountainous region to the east of or "beyond" Lake Baikal in Russia. The alternative name, Dauria, is derived from the ethnonym of the Daur people. It stretches for almost 1000 km from north to south from the Patomskoye Plateau and North...

ia in Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

. Its habitat

Habitat

* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...

 is dry steppe

Steppe

In physical geography, steppe is an ecoregion, in the montane grasslands and shrublands and temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biomes, characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes...

s and pasture

Pasture

Pasture is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep or swine. The vegetation of tended pasture, forage, consists mainly of grasses, with an interspersion of legumes and other forbs...

s and it is sometimes also found in lakeside meadows and river valleys.

Ecology

Brandt's vole is a colonial

Colony (biology)

In biology, a colony reference to several individual organisms of the same species living closely together, usually for mutual benefit, such as stronger defense or the ability to attack bigger prey. Some insects live only in colonies...

 species. Each family establishes a network of burrows with several entrances, long passages, storerooms and nesting chambers. The voles are active during both the day and night and their behaviour varies at different times of year. They feed on both the underground and aerial parts of plants. Large stores of food are laid up before the winter and the energy intake of the voles seems to be correlated with the length of day. There are four or five broods each year, with each litter consisting of about seven young. Population levels are subject to wide swings. Under unfavourable conditions, this vole can be wiped out of some of the regions in which it is normally found, but when the conditions are right, mass outbreaks can occur. This periodically happens in Mongolia when millions of hectares of pasture are invaded. Under this onslaught, the pastures can become very bare, poor subsoil

Subsoil

Subsoil, or substrata, is the layer of soil under the topsoil on the surface of the ground. The subsoil may include substances such as clay and/or sand that has only been partially broken down by air, sunlight, water, wind etc., to produce true soil...

 can be brought to the surface by burrowing activities and coarse weed

Weed

A weed in a general sense is a plant that is considered by the user of the term to be a nuisance, and normally applied to unwanted plants in human-controlled settings, especially farm fields and gardens, but also lawns, parks, woods, and other areas. More specifically, the term is often used to...

s can become established.