Lacey’s white-ankled mouse was only recently split from a wider-ranging relative, and the paperwork hasn’t fully caught up: the IUCN still lists it as Not Evaluated even though NatureServe already tracks the Texas population and rates it S5, Secure. Records from Big Thicket National Preserve, Davy Crockett National Forest, and Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge span the species’ rocky, wooded range across East Texas and into the Hill Country.
Every one of the 1,061 Texas records comes from GBIF specimen data. Not one has an iNaturalist observation attached, a sign that identifying this mouse reliably still leans on close inspection of its feet and genetics rather than a photo in the field. Reports spike hard in May and, to a lesser degree, February and March, a pattern that looks more like trapping-season timing than a real spring surge in numbers.
Full species profile
