New Mexico holds the core of the banner-tailed kangaroo rat’s mapped US range: of roughly 318 range-wide records, 150 come from New Mexico alone, more than Arizona, Texas, and Utah combined. Gila National Forest, City of Rocks State Park, and the Gila River corridor anchor that record inside the state’s desert grasslands and basin floors rather than its forested peaks.
Records rise sharply in July and stay elevated into September and October, but with fewer than 1,000 records spread across 26 years, that shape likely tracks warm-season fieldwork more than a real burst in activity.
The species carries a global Near Threatened status from the IUCN, an unusual rating for a desert rodent, and its future in New Mexico ties partly to the mounds it builds. Each mound can outlast the animal that dug it, seeding burrow habitat other kangaroo rats reuse for years.
Full species profile
