In summer, the fur on the back is pale yellowish-buff, paler on the flanks and merging into the yellowish-grey underparts.

[4] The narrow-headed vole is distributed across the tundra region of northern Asia from the White Sea to the Kolyma River.

It also occurs as separate populations on the steppes of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, southwestern Siberia, the Sakha Republic, Mongolia, and northern China.

The Carpathian population was highly divergent genetically with Asian narrow-headed voles[5] and became extinct in the Late Copper Age, during the Middle Holocene.

[7] The narrow-headed vole lives in a complex system of tunnels that run up to 25 cm (10 in) beneath the ground surface.