Montana sits at the western edge of the prairie vole’s range, which centers on the Great Plains from Texas north into the Dakotas. That geography helps explain why the state has only 167 mapped records, a fraction of what turns up in core prairie states, all logged through GBIF rather than iNaturalist photo reports.
The listed locations, Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, Flathead Lake, and the Missouri River corridor, all offer the open grassy ground this vole needs; it lives in loose colonies of shared burrows rather than alone, so a good patch of grassland can hold several family groups at once.
Records peak in June and August, with a smaller bump earlier in spring. Given how few total records exist, that pattern is better read as a rough hint than a firm seasonal trend. NatureServe ranks the species S4, Apparently Secure, in Montana, a healthier status than the low record count alone might suggest.
Full species profile
