Eurasian harvest mouse

The Eurasian harvest mouse, Micromys minutus, is a small mouse native to Europe and Asia and the smallest European rodent, with adults weighing as little as 4 grams. It has reddish-brown fur, white underparts and a naked, highly prehensile tail that it uses for climbing. It is typically found in fields of cereal crops such as wheat, rice and oats, in reed beds, and in other tall ground vegetation such as long grass and hedgerows. It eats chiefly seeds and insects, but also nectar and fruit. Its breeding nests are spherical structures woven from grass and attached to stems well above the ground; Gilbert White described them at Selborne, and tennis balls used at Wimbledon have been recycled as artificial nests. The genus Micromys most likely evolved in Asia and is related to the long-tailed climbing mouse and the pencil-tailed tree mouse, and Micromys minutus is recorded from the Early Pleistocene in Germany.