What do moles eat? A look at their diet and favorite foods

What’s on a Mole’s Menu? Uncovering Their Diet and Favorite Foods Ever wondered what that small digging mammal is eating to create all the molehills in your garden?

Moles are a real mystery to many of us. You rarely, if ever, see one, yet their signature mounds of dirt are a constant sight in our gardens, fields, and forests. A mole’s diet is a key part of its lifestyle, and their constant digging is largely a quest for food. Let’s clear up a common misconception right away: moles aren’t rodents like voles. Instead, they are specialized insectivores that hunt for prey beneath the ground.

This article will give you the complete lowdown on a mole’s diet and foraging habits. We’ll dive deep into what they eat, their favorite prey, the clever hunting techniques they use, and their surprising role in the natural ecosystem.

1.Moles are unparalleled insectivorous mammals

The mole is a small mammal that digs tunnels underground and belongs to the Talpidae family (Basically, it’s an insectivore). It is known for its subterranean lifestyle and its molehills. Unlike rodents, it will not eat your plants or roots.

The mole’s diet consists mainly of insects and invertebrates. In fact, what they do with earthworms will surprise you!

And if they can’t smell their meal through the dirt, here’s a fun fact: their snout is covered with vibrissae—ultra-sensitive hairs—that can detect the tiniest vibrations from worms or insects in their tunnels!

Did you know that since moles don’t store fat, they will literally die if they go without food for just six hours! They have very high energy and calorie needs, which is why they must eat at least 30% of their body weight in earthworms every day (an average of at least 20 earthworms per day). On average, what a mole eats is equivalent to its own body weight in worms each day, about 100 grams.

But do moles only eat earthworms? What else is on the menu besides the worms that just happen to fall into their tunnels?

2.The Mole’s Main Menu: A Feast of Invertebrates

All scientific sources agree on one thing: a mole’s diet is overwhelmingly based on earthworms. That works out perfectly, because there’s an estimated 1 ton of earthworms per hectare of land! They’ll never run out of food.

80% to 90% of their diet is made up of worms that they capture as soon as they fall into their tunnels. Now you understand why moles dig those tunnels that can make your garden look so messy! They dig so many tunnels because the tunnels themselves are like a spider’s web, allowing them to easily catch their food.

But moles don’t limit themselves to earthworms; they also feast on a wide variety of other insects and invertebrates. So, what other types of food do these moles find beneath the soil?

• Insect larvae: crane flies, beetle larvae (like cockchafers and white grubs)
• Caterpillars
• Slugs and snails
• Millipedes
• Some shelled insects
• Small mammals: Very rarely, but it happens, moles will attack small mammals that venture into their tunnels.

It is mistakenly believed that moles attack roots and crops, but this is not the case. Moles do not feed on tubers, roots, or plants. They may damage them and cut some small roots while digging their tunnels, but they will never eat them. As such, they are not a real threat to crops as long as they don’t make their molehills there.

3.The Moles’ Underground Pantries

Now you must be wondering, what are we talking about? Does a mole have a fridge to store its food to eat later?

Believe it or not, it’s even more clever than that! Moles dig special cavities to use as pantries, and yes, they do stockpile earthworms! To store the earthworms without them escaping from the tunnels, they have developed a very specific technique: they paralyze them with a precise bite to the head. And once the worm is paralyzed, it is stored and stays still!

A mole’s pantry is a true food reserve that allows it to survive, especially during times of scarcity or drought, when the soil is harder to dig. To give you a real number, more than 1200 earthworms and 18 white grubs have been found in a single pantry! That means more than one kilogram of worms were found in the same pantry belonging to the same mole!

4.Common Misconceptions and Truths About the Mole’s Diet

Since moles are animals that live underground, we often hear a lot of misconceptions about them. So let’s analyze them together.

• Moles are blind: Moles are not blind, but their eyes only allow them to see differences in light. They use their nose, hearing, and vibrissae to find their prey.
• You need to feed moles: As we’ve seen from the start, the mole is an animal that evolved underground and has all the necessary features to find its food without human intervention.
• Moles are hemophiliacs: No, moles are mammals that give birth to their young, so they cannot be hemophiliacs, or they would bleed to death with each litter.
• Moles can eat mole poison: No, as we’ve seen, moles only eat live invertebrates or insects. They do not eat inert matter. Therefore, mole poison has absolutely no effect.
• Moles eat roots: As explained previously, moles are insectivores and do not consume plants, unlike voles.

5.The Mole is an Indicator of Healthy Soil and Can Be a Gardener’s Ally

When we see moles in our garden, we immediately think of them as pests. But through their tunnels, moles also play a beneficial role in the ecosystem. In fact, they can help regulate populations of harmful insects.

The presence of moles also means you have healthy soil, since it indicates that your soil is full of earthworms. And the presence of earthworms is a sign that your soil is rich in organic matter and nutrients.

So if you’re wondering what a mole in a garden means, there you have it: your garden is a healthy garden. By feeding on larvae, they can also limit the spread of white grubs and, in doing so, protect your crops.

Under certain conditions, we can therefore see the mole as an ally.

6.The Consequences of Mole Activity: Molehills and Other Damage

What a mole eats is also the source of the damage it causes in gardens. Indeed, it’s in a quest to find and store its food that it digs new tunnels every day. And new tunnels mean new mounds of earth.

So it’s because of the moles’ food, and because of what moles eat, that you end up with so many molehills. And unfortunately, as long as the mole is alive, it will dig new tunnels.

In a beautiful garden, where you’ve invested your time and money, it only takes a few days for a mole to turn it into a minefield. The mole doesn’t hibernate and always remains very active, so don’t expect it to stop on its own.

The second problem with the damage caused by moles is that they also cause ground subsidence. Soil tilled by moles can give way unexpectedly under your feet. Your garden can end up with bumps and hollows everywhere.

It is therefore important and urgent to act to contain the mole before it causes too much damage.

Third, there’s the visual damage. A beautiful lawn covered in molehills is simply not a beautiful lawn anymore.

For farmers, moles can also hinder harvesting. While moles themselves aren’t dangerous, it’s their tunneling activity that can become a hazard.

7.How to Deal with Moles?

When you have moles in your garden, you want to act fast to prevent them from destroying all your hard work.

To help, we offer a solution based on a traditional method that will help you quickly take control of your mole problem.

We invite you to check out our shop. You’ll see that we don’t sell any repellents, and for good reason—they just don’t work. At best, a repellent might make a mole move a few centimeters away, only to dig a new tunnel right next door. And if your garden is already full of molehills, you’d need an insane amount of repellent to even make a dent.

It’s the same story with firecrackers. Which tunnel do you set them in? How many do you need? What if the soil is wet? And if the mole comes back, do you have to buy more?

Instead, we use a traditional solution: the putange trap, which has been in use since the days of King Louis XVI at the Palace of Versailles. The reason this trap is still around today is simple: it works. Our trap requires no batteries, solar panels, poison, bait, or chemicals.

It’s completely mechanical, and we provide it with the exact method you need to successfully manage your mole problem. Head over to our shop, and you’ll find the solution you’re looking for.