The silky pocket mouse is among the smallest rodents in Arizona, a soft-furred seed-eater light enough to sit in the palm of a hand. Open occurrence databases hold 851 Arizona records, almost entirely from survey work and specimens rather than photographs, a reflection of its size, its nocturnal habits, and how easily it goes unnoticed.
A mouse of open grassland
Unlike the pocket mice of the hot lowlands, the silky pocket mouse favors grassland and open shrub-steppe, much of it at higher, cooler elevations. Its Arizona records cluster on the Colorado Plateau grasslands of Coconino and Navajo counties and in the grassy valleys of the southeast around Cochise County. It gathers small seeds in fur-lined cheek pouches, stores them in a burrow, and can drop into torpor to wait out cold snaps and lean times, spending the harshest stretches inactive underground.
Small, silky, and rarely seen
The animal takes its name from its exceptionally fine, soft coat, buff above and white below, with a short tail that lacks the tufted tip of a kangaroo rat. It weighs only a few grams, so even where it is common it leaves little for an observer to notice, and the map of where it lives has been drawn mostly from traps rather than cameras.
Common questions
Where does it live in Arizona? Open grassland and shrub-steppe, mainly on the northern plateaus and in the southeastern grassland valleys, rather than the low hot deserts.
How big is it? Tiny, among the lightest mammals in the state, which is part of why it is so seldom seen.
Full species profile
