This mole lives in forest soils on Honshu. Its coat is black to dark gray, while its bare snout and limbs are tan.
Its fur is black to dark gray, while the bare snout and limbs are tan.
The nestlings huddled together. In a Kyoto nest in May 2007, three young estimated to be about ten days old rotated their bodies and tried to burrow beneath one another when the covering nest material was removed.
The nesting site, at 735 metres in Kyoto University’s Ashiu Research Forest, had been followed for years. On 17 June, two well-furred nestlings remained. One was taken indoors for observation. After eating almost nothing initially, it ate cut earthworms the next morning and sucked at cut mealworms. These dated observations document both behaviour within the nest and feeding by one captive nestling before dispersal.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
Kyoto Prefecture’s 2015 account identifies a risk that environmental change could allow competing moles to enter and replace this species. It recommends clarifying its distribution within the prefecture and conserving forest habitats in that range.