New Mexico sits at the western edge of the prairie vole’s range, a grassland specialist better known elsewhere on the Great Plains for forming lasting pair bonds between mates. Here, every one of the state’s 256 records comes from GBIF specimen data, not a single iNaturalist photo.
NatureServe ranks the species S2, Imperiled, in New Mexico, a sharper concern than its secure status across the wider Great Plains. The monthly pattern is unusually lopsided too: 130 records in January alone against long stretches of zero in February, August, and September, a spike that almost certainly reflects one concentrated trapping survey rather than a real winter surge in activity.
Records reach into Carson, Gila, and Lincoln national forests, isolated patches of grassland scattered across a state that’s mostly too dry and rocky for a grass-and-runway specialist like this one.
Full species profile
