Montana’s olive-backed pocket mouse records sit right in the dry grassland and river-terrace habitat the species favors, including ground near the Missouri River corridor, where sandy soil and scattered shrub cover let this small seed-gatherer dig burrows and haul food home in its fur-lined cheek pouches. All 103 Montana records come from GBIF rather than iNaturalist, typical for a nocturnal rodent that spends daylight hours underground.
July is the clear peak month, with 58 of the state’s 103 records, more than half the annual total, a season when nighttime trapping surveys are easiest to run, not a sign the mouse only appears in midsummer. It can spend long cold-season stretches underground living off cached seed rather than surfacing at all. NatureServe rates the species Secure (S5) in Montana, matching a pocket mouse that occupies a real, if narrow, band of shortgrass and shrubland habitat east of the Rockies rather than a marginal edge population.
Full species profile
