Panamint kangaroo rat reports outline the gravelly fans, desert washes, and open shrublands around Death Valley and the Mojave National Preserve in California’s eastern deserts. The Owens Peak and Kiavah wildernesses on the desert slope of the far southern Sierra add a western edge in Kern County, but loose soil and sparse cover matter more to the animal than a park boundary.
April has by far the most records, 128 of the 387, with a second, smaller rise in September. Winter reports fall sharply, and December is especially quiet. That seasonal shape may combine cooler-weather inactivity with changing survey effort; it doesn’t show that kangaroo rats disappear from occupied desert sites.
Full species profile
