Indiana’s file on the southern bog lemming is thin: just 10 confirmed records since 2000. Eight of them come from a single county, Jay, along the Ohio border, with Jackson and Monroe counties contributing one apiece. A cluster that tight almost always traces back to one localized survey rather than a real stronghold, and the same caution applies to timing: 8 of the 10 records were logged in November, which says more about when someone was trapping than about the lemmings’ calendar.
Habitat to search, not confirmed haunts
The ground that looks right on paper sits mostly in the north. Indiana Dunes National Park holds marsh and wet prairie along Lake Michigan, Kankakee Sands restores exactly the kind of damp sedge-and-grass cover this species builds its runways in, and Pokagon State Park adds fens and lakeshore in the northeast corner. None of the three has produced a confirmed record yet; the reports so far sit far to the east and south. That gap is a reminder that for a rarely trapped, mostly hidden rodent, an empty map often just means nobody has looked with traps.
Status in Indiana
NatureServe ranks the southern bog lemming S3 in Indiana, vulnerable, even though the species is considered secure rangewide. The low grade reflects how little confirmed ground it has in the state, and it’s the best argument for treating every wet meadow in the northern counties as potential lemming habitat worth a trap line.
Full species profile
