Fulvous harvest mice reach the northern tip of their range in Kansas. The species is common through Texas and Oklahoma but tapers off fast moving north, and Kansas holds just 12 of over 1,300 range-wide records, a sliver befitting the very edge of where it lives. That edge position likely explains NatureServe’s Kansas rank of vulnerable (S3), a step down from the species’ secure global rank (G5).
Records run light through the year and peak in August, with 6 of the 12 total sightings, which may track late-summer grass growth and cover rather than any real population surge, given how few records there are to draw a pattern from. Thick grass, briars, and brushy wet ground near Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, Cheyenne Bottoms, and Cimarron National Grassland offer the tangled cover this small, orange-buff mouse needs to move unseen, setting it apart from the grayer western harvest mouse that shares similar ground.
Full species profile
