Barely eight of New Mexico’s 2,510 documented northern grasshopper mouse records come from iNaturalist, with the rest built entirely from GBIF specimen and survey data. That split makes sense for a predator that hunts almost entirely after dark and spends daylight sealed inside a burrow. The most recent logged sighting dates to 2022, another sign that trapping surveys, not casual encounters, drive what’s known about this mouse in the state.
Santa Fe National Forest, Las Vegas National Wildlife Refuge, and the Pecos River headwaters anchor the named locations, tracing a route from mountain forest edge down into high grassland along one of northern New Mexico’s major rivers. NatureServe ranks the species S5, secure statewide, matching a predator that can hold territory wherever prairie dog towns or open grassland supply both burrows and insect prey.
Reports climb through summer and peak in June and again in October, a pattern that tracks field-survey timing rather than any real swing in how many mice are out hunting.
Full species profile
