The round-tailed ground squirrel is one of the most frequently recorded small mammals of Arizona’s low deserts. Open occurrence databases hold 3,261 records for it in the state, a large share of them iNaturalist photos from the Phoenix and Tucson basins.
A ground squirrel built for the desert floor
Pale, plain, and sandy-coated, this squirrel blends into bare desert ground until it moves. It lives in colonies of burrows dug into loose Sonoran Desert soils among creosote and mesquite. Reports cluster in Maricopa, Pima, and Pinal counties, the hot low country around Phoenix and Tucson. Its slender, lightly haired tail gives the animal its name and sets it apart from the region’s bushier-tailed squirrels.
Active when the desert allows
Unlike the high-country species that sleep through winter, this desert squirrel is built for heat and stays out and busy through much of the year. Even so, it retreats underground during the fiercest late-summer heat and again through the coldest winter weeks. Surface activity swells in spring, when the desert greens and colonies are at their most visible, then eases as animals spend more time below ground, so the spring surge in the record tracks visibility rather than a spring-only presence.
Common questions
Is it related to the desert’s kangaroo rats? No. It is a true ground squirrel, active by day and living in colonies, while kangaroo rats are nocturnal seed-hoarders that bound about on long hind legs.
Full species profile
