South Dakota’s pygmy shrew file is a puzzle. NatureServe tags the species SH in the state, possibly extirpated, meaning it’s known here only from historical records. Yet the report ledger isn’t quite empty: since 2000 there’s one iNaturalist record, a September report from Sanborn County in the east-central part of the state. Older specimens from the glaciated northeast corner, mostly from Marshall and Day counties, predate that window.
That northeast corner is lake-and-marsh country, a wetter, cooler landscape than most of the state, and it’s the plausible edge of the shrew’s range spilling down from the north. Whether a breeding population persists there, or whether the records mark a species that has slipped away, is exactly the kind of question the SH rank flags. Apart from the single recent report, the trail is made of those older museum specimens and survey captures.
The one recent report is dated September, when young shrews are dispersing and easier to stumble on, but a single date says nothing about the animal’s year. Until someone runs fresh surveys in the northeast marshes, South Dakota’s pygmy shrew stays a maybe: one recent report, and no confirmed population.
Full species profile
