Every one of Missouri’s 807 prairie vole records comes from GBIF, not iNaturalist, which tracks with a small grassland rodent that spends most of its life in surface runways under thick grass rather than in view. Prairie State Park and Taberville Prairie Conservation Area are two of the state’s last big tallgrass prairie remnants, exactly the unplowed grassland this vole depends on. It’s also a longtime subject of pair-bonding research, since prairie voles are one of the few mammals known to form lasting male-female partnerships.
Records climb sharply from January into a strong March and April peak, then fall off through summer, a pattern that likely tracks trapping-season timing more than an actual spring surge in numbers. NatureServe lists it S4, Apparently Secure, across Missouri.
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