South Dakota has just 4 northern flying squirrel records since 2000, from the Black Hills forest of Pennington and Custer counties around Mount Rushmore National Memorial, a small count that fits both a genuinely scarce animal and one that’s active mostly after dark.
An isolated outpost, far from the rest of the range
Northern flying squirrels mostly range across a continuous band of northern forest from Alaska through the Pacific Northwest, the Great Lakes, and the Northeast. The Black Hills squirrels sit apart from all of that, an isolated pocket of cool conifer forest hundreds of miles from the nearest connected range, holding on here the way a handful of other high mountain forests do farther west.
A forest floor connection that depends on old growth
These squirrels eat mushrooms and underground fungi as much as seeds and buds, and they need standing dead wood, decaying logs, and old tree cavities to den in, habitat that thins out fast in younger, more actively managed timber. Because they’re active mostly after dark, few people ever see one, and the state’s recent records are all iNaturalist observations, with the dated ones falling singly in May, July, and August, too sparse to show any seasonal pattern.
Status in South Dakota
USGS NAS doesn’t list the northern flying squirrel as nonindigenous in South Dakota, and NatureServe ranks it S3, vulnerable, in the state. It’s native to the isolated pocket of Black Hills forest it depends on here.
Full species profile
