Northern flying squirrels rarely turn up in Wyoming’s occurrence records, ranking among the state’s least-reported mammals with only about fifty confirmed sightings, mostly from Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and the surrounding Bridger-Teton forest. That scarcity says more about how hard the animal is to catch on camera than about how many actually live in these high conifer forests. It’s a nocturnal glider that sails between trees on a furred skin membrane and dens in cavities and old snags, so most people never see one even where it’s common.
Reported sightings cluster in August, when late-summer trail activity and warm nights likely put more observers in the right forest at the right time, not because the squirrels themselves are more active then. NatureServe rates the species vulnerable in Wyoming (S3), a step below its secure global status, reflecting how thin and scattered its high-elevation forest habitat is here.
Full species profile
