The olive-backed pocket mouse is built for dry country, carrying seeds in fur-lined cheek pouches so its food stays dry while it forages after dark. Wyoming has logged only 203 records of it, a modest count that fits a small, nocturnal species easy to miss even where it’s fairly common, and NatureServe still rates it S4, Apparently Secure, statewide despite the thin record trail.
Reports cluster around the drier grassland and shrubland edges near Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge, the National Elk Refuge, and the Yellowstone River corridor, habitat that matches its need for loose, diggable soil and scattered seed plants. July holds the largest share, 102 of the 203 records, and almost nothing shows up outside the Jun to Aug stretch, which likely reflects when surveyors are in the field rather than a true summer-only presence. Just one of the 203 records came through iNaturalist, underscoring how rarely this mouse gets photographed compared with trapped and logged.
Full species profile
