Cotton mouse records gather along Georgia’s coast, especially in Cumberland and Sapelo Island maritime forest and around Savannah National Wildlife Refuge. Live oak hammocks there offer thick leaf litter, fallen trunks, and cavities above wet ground. The mice can climb low branches, but most encounters come from the tangled forest floor and swamp edge.
May produces the strongest reporting peak, followed by another pulse in August and September. That uneven pattern likely reflects warm-season trapping and survey schedules as much as mouse activity. Winter’s thinner record trail doesn’t show absence. It shows how difficult a small, night-active mouse is to detect beneath palmetto, roots, and damp leaves when fewer surveys are running.
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