Caught this mole this morning.I've had them with a reddish brown stripe on them but this one has a spot that is almost blaze orange.The picture doesn't do it justice.

That there is one of those rare marten moles.

A lot of our moles have that orange spotting in this area. Was talking with a grounds keeper on a set up today and he was telling me his father trapped them in England when he was a boy and sold the fur. He stated that their moles were coal black not grey like ours.

ive also heard of moles selling at auction houses.. they used the fur to line purses with.. so ive been told

Rare Marten moles?
Ah, hahahahahahahaha......Pretty common color phase down here!

I skin, tan and sell some of the "fresh caught ones each year to fly tiers who cut them into strips to wrap a hook as the "body" of a fly they tie.
I get $10. a piece. Takes $2. to tan one, unless you know how to do it yourself!

I catch several every year that have an orange spot on them. Some are brigher orange than others.

Skin him, or drop him in a bottle of rubbing alcohol and keep him!

I think the orange spot is from them carrying too many little wet pumpkins this time of the year.

I went to Nordstroms once and found a coal black cape. (Formal evening wear that extended half way down the arms, would be worn over a dress.)

I couldn't figure out what kind of fur it was. It was in little rectangles about 2 inches long, sewn into a pattern with the seams showing. The fur was either the shortest fur I'd ever seen on an animal or sheared.
I couldn't decide what it was. It was definitely softer and finer than rex rabbit.

I looked at the price tag: $3,000. Moleskin.

So how many did you get? I imagine that goes perfectly with the Russian hat with the pigeon on top!

But just imagine what would happen if the pigeon had to go to the bathroom!

Tsarevna, well did you buy the cape?

Nah, it was dry-clean only! (Not so good when it rains about 300 days out of the year here.)

She didn't buy one but for 3 grand I'll bet she's thinking about sewing a bunch of those mole skins together!

moleskin... $3000.00 well looks like i found my new venture as a business man... catching moles and making capes!

I got a orange mole today. I've seen a few with orange streaks on them, but nothing like this before. I've seen untold thousands upon thousands of moles, and this is a first in the 18 years I've been doing this.

wow!! is he a fresh one?? is he for sale?

But, I just PM'd you back, but no, not fresh at all. Been dead for several days by the time we picked him up.

like finding the golden ticket...eerrrr.. i mean mole

Bud, did you ever see the pictures I have of an albino gopher and a melanistic(black) gopher that we caught on the same job site on the same day? Again, I had seen neither an albino nor an all black gopher in 17 years, and I literally pulled the black gopher out of my bucket to show it to the tech I was working with, and he said "oh yeah, well look at this...", and pulled the albino gopher out of his bucket. It was pretty weird. Here they are...

yes i sat and awed at that pic a while back. congrats.. i think you won the lottery with mole and gopher trapping...

Color morphs are not uncommon in fossorial mammals (not a big disadv. if you rarely come above ground).

I have a couple of friends working on the genetics of coat colors in natural populations of small mammals. A donation of frozen specimen to a natural history museum is highly recommended (if you are just tossing them aside).

I caught several of these Mazama Pocket Gophers in Oregon this summer. It's a black morph subspecies...there are areas of all black and others areas with a mix colors.

I'm trying to figure out how to attach the photo in the message and failed.

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I Would get that one mounted.Steve don't think you'll ever get another one like that.