The Snake River Plains ground squirrel has one of the tightest documented ranges of any mammal in the state. Of 117 Idaho records, 100 come from Ada County, essentially the Boise metro area. Elmore is a distant second at 11. The squirrel’s world is the sagebrush flats and field edges of the western Snake River Plain. The record says so plainly.
Two things stand out in the record. First, every entry is an iNaturalist photograph. The museum specimen side, via GBIF, is empty. This is a species being documented almost entirely by local camera phones. Second, the calendar is compressed. Reports climb from February to an April crest of 55 and stop by June. Like its ground squirrel relatives, this animal is above ground for only a few months before retreating from the summer heat. The April peak is real biology, not observer fashion. NatureServe hasn’t ranked the species. A squirrel this localized, living beside one of the fastest-growing metros in the country, deserves the attention its record keeps requesting.
Full species profile
