Just 20 northern flying squirrel records show up in North Dakota’s occurrence data, among the thinnest counts of any overlay in the state. That’s expected for a squirrel built for cool conifer forest in a state that’s almost entirely without it.
Conifer specialists, hundreds of miles from conifer forest
Elsewhere in its range, the northern flying squirrel depends on cool conifer and mixed forest, using tree cavities and old woodpecker holes for shelter and feeding on fungi and decaying wood on the forest floor. North Dakota offers almost none of that. The state’s records cluster around the prairie pothole refuges at J. Clark Salyer, Long Lake, and Chase Lake, out in the Drift Prairie and Missouri Coteau, where the closest thing to the squirrel’s usual cover is likely the planted spruce and pine shelterbelts refuge managers established decades ago around old homestead sites and headquarters buildings.
A nocturnal glider, rarely seen even where it lives
A flying squirrel doesn’t truly fly; it launches from a trunk, spreads a furred membrane between wrist and ankle, and glides to the next tree before gripping on feet-first. That’s an animal built to move after dark and stay above the ground, which makes it hard to document anywhere, let alone at the far edge of a mostly treeless state. The scattered, low record count here reads less like a rare animal and more like one that’s simply out of its element.
Status in North Dakota
NatureServe hasn’t assigned the northern flying squirrel a numeric rank in North Dakota, listing it SNR, unranked, though it’s secure globally at G5. It’s native to its North Dakota range, though the state sits at the far southern and eastern fringe of the cool forest habitat this squirrel actually needs.
Full species profile
