The black-tailed prairie dog is one of Colorado’s most-recorded mammals. Open occurrence databases hold 6,753 records for it, most of them iNaturalist photos, gathered from the eastern plains and the grassy open spaces of the Denver-Boulder corridor.
A keystone of the eastern plains
This is the prairie dog of the flatlands, the colonial rodent of shortgrass and mixed-grass prairie, and its records crowd the Front Range urban edge and the plains beyond, in Boulder, Adams, Larimer, and Jefferson counties. Its towns are among the busiest wildlife communities in the state: burrow networks that shelter burrowing owls and snakes, clipped turf that draws grazers, and a resident population that feeds hawks, badgers, and the endangered black-footed ferret. A black-tipped tail sets it apart from the plateau-dwelling Gunnison’s prairie dog.
Active all year
Unlike Gunnison’s prairie dog and the ground squirrels that share the state, this species does not truly hibernate. It stays active through winter, dropping below ground only during the hardest cold snaps, which is why its records hold up across every month rather than vanishing in the off-season, even as sightings ease when fewer people are out watching.
Common but vulnerable
Topping the state’s observation charts does not make the species safe. NatureServe ranks it S3, vulnerable, in Colorado, because its abundance is concentrated in a shrinking set of towns, and habitat conversion and sylvatic plague have pared back a range that once blanketed the plains.
Full species profile
