Dormice: Myoxidae

Dormice are found in Europe, Africa, central and western Asia, and Japan.

Dormice can be found in deciduous forests, woodlands, grasslands, gardens, parks, rocky areas, or scrub areas. Within these areas, they create nests where they rest during the day. These nests are built off of the ground in holes in trees, rocky crevices, abandoned burrows, building attics, or in wedges of tree branches. The nests are ball-shaped, and are made out of leaves, grass, moss, lichen, shredded bark, other plant pieces, and saliva. They are lined with hair or feathers.

Due to the fact that dormice store food in their bodies in the form of fat, humans use dormice as a food source. They typically run into humans when they are trying to find areas in which to hibernate. They may even enter human homes for this very purpose. They can cause problems for humans when they eat the fruit in orchards.

More than half of dormice species are at risk. Dormice are threatened by loss of habitat and climate change, which changes their habitats and causes temperature shifts. The World Conservation Union (IUCN) lists four dormice species as Endangered, facing a very high risk of extinction; four as Vulnerable, facing a high risk of extinction; and five as Near Threatened, not currently threatened, but could become so.