Missouri has 361 muskrat records, a modest total for a state laced with farm ponds, river sloughs, and bottomland marsh. Every one of them comes from iNaturalist. GBIF carries 236, and many of those are the same iNaturalist photos shared to both databases, so the two counts overlap rather than add up.
Two hot spots at opposite ends
St. Louis County leads with 76, a reflection of suburban lakes, park ponds, and a big population of people with cameras. The surprise is Holt County, in the far northwest corner on the Missouri River floodplain, with 54. It’s a thinly settled farm county, so a total that high points to the bottomland wetlands there rather than to a crowd of observers. Boone County, around Columbia, comes third. In the south, Ozark National Scenic Riverways and the Mingo National Wildlife Refuge Wilderness Area, deep in the southeastern swamp country, each add a few reports.
Reports jump in March, the peak month, and stay high through April and May before falling off in June. July brings a small second rise, and October is the quietest month. With so few records, those swings are worth reading loosely.
NatureServe ranks the muskrat S4, apparently secure, in Missouri, a notch below the top rank. It’s a native animal here.
Full species profile
