Wood mouse

The wood mouse, Apodemus sylvaticus, is a murid rodent native to Europe and northwestern Africa. It resembles the yellow-necked mouse but has no band of yellow fur on the neck, slightly smaller ears and a usually smaller body, around 90 millimetres long and 23 grams in weight. It is found across most of Europe, north to Scandinavia and east to Ukraine, and on many Mediterranean islands, and it is very common and widespread. It lives in forests, grasslands and cultivated fields, seeking wooded areas in winter, and is almost entirely nocturnal and terrestrial, burrowing extensively and nesting in plants or in buildings in harsh seasons. It feeds mainly on seeds of oak, beech, ash, lime, hawthorn and sycamore, with snails, insects, berries, fruit, fungi and roots as well. It is a potential carrier of the Dobrava hantavirus and is sometimes considered a pest.