Publisher's Synopsis
A detailed study of the natural history of moles and desmans which places them in a large ecological framework. Neither animal is easy to study, moles because of their underground life and desmans because they are aquatic. Only in the last three decades has substantial information on their biology been gathered from their habitats in Europe and North America and the mountain streams of the Pyrenees and areas of Russia.;The authors give an overview of their biological family, the talpidae, and assess the evolutionary history and taxonomic relationships of the different members together with the geographical distribution of species.;The different ways of life - aquatic and subterranean are compared and the work examines diet and feeding, and patterns of daily activity together with reproduction and population demography. The relationships with neighbours and habitat are investigated as well as man's attitudes towards the management and conservation of these species.
