New Mexico holds only a sliver of the gray-collared chipmunk’s small Southwest range, the cool conifer forest of the Mogollon highlands around Gila National Forest, which carries the only place-level count in the record. City of Rocks State Park and the Gila River corridor mark the edges of that same search area.
Records vanish completely from November through February and peak in July, a pattern that tracks real chipmunk biology: the species hibernates through the coldest months, so the seasonal gap isn’t just an observer effect the way it is for year-round species.
NatureServe ranks the chipmunk S3, Vulnerable, in New Mexico, reflecting how narrow and mountain-bound its range is here compared with its broader distribution across the Southwest.
Full species profile
