The northern grasshopper mouse doesn’t act like a mouse at all. It hunts insects, scorpions, and even other small rodents, and it marks territory by rearing onto its hind legs and letting out a thin, high howl, a trait almost unheard of among North American rodents.
Every one of the 100 North Dakota records logged for this species comes from GBIF specimen data, with no iNaturalist photos in the mix, which fits an animal that hunts alone at night and rarely sits still for a picture. Reports cluster in September, with smaller pulses in June and August, more likely tracking insect activity than any real shift in numbers. Sheyenne National Grassland, Pembina Gorge, and Icelandic State Park span the mix of open prairie and wooded coulee this species uses, though a report from one of those spots mostly means someone went looking there.
NatureServe hasn’t assigned North Dakota a state rank for the species yet (SNR, unranked), though it’s considered secure range-wide (G5) and native across the state’s western grassland belt.
Full species profile
