Iowa’s prairie shrew file is thin enough to read in one sitting. There are 18 records spread across 13 counties, most of them single specimens. Buena Vista County’s four form the only cluster of any size. That scarcity says more about how rarely anyone traps small mammals in Iowa than about the shrew itself. The counties with records reach from Lyon and Sioux in the northwest to Adams and Union along the Missouri line. That hints at a widespread animal at low detectability, not one confined to a corner.
The dated records lean toward late summer. August produced the most, with a smaller June rise, though a single survey trip can bend a curve this small. Prairie remnants and wet meadow edges are the right kind of cover. Springbrook State Park is the only named site in the record. NatureServe still considers the species apparently secure in Iowa. The honest reading: the prairie shrew is confirmed here, broadly distributed on paper, and badly under-documented.
Full species profile
