Cotton mice post by far the largest raw record count of any species in this Louisiana rank tier, 1,331 total, yet all but 5 of them come from GBIF rather than iNaturalist, meaning decades of small-mammal trapping surveys, not casual photographs, built nearly the entire dataset. NatureServe rates the population S5, secure, fitting a species that’s genuinely one of the best-studied rodents in Louisiana’s forests and wetland edges.
Records peak sharply in late winter, February and March together account for 417 of the 1,331 sightings, more than 30 percent of the total, with a deep May trough of just 21; that swing likely tracks when the largest trapping surveys ran rather than any real seasonal explosion in the mouse’s own activity.
Full species profile
