Tennessee’s occurrence record for the southern bog lemming holds 115 entries, and all but 2 came from GBIF survey data rather than a casual sighting, exactly what you’d expect from a rodent that spends its life under matted grass rather than out in the open.
Wet ground in the western lowlands
Reelfoot Lake State Park, Hatchie National Wildlife Refuge, and Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge all sit in the Mississippi River bottomlands of West Tennessee, a landscape of wet meadows, sedge beds, and marshy forest openings that matches this species’ preferred ground closely. Despite the name, bog lemmings aren’t limited to true bogs; any patch of thick, damp low cover with sedges and grasses to cut runways through will do, which is why West Tennessee’s wetland refuges suit it as well as any highland bog would.
A runway builder, not a wanderer
This species doesn’t make the long-distance mass movements some northern lemmings are known for. It cuts short paths through vegetation, builds round nests from grass and sedge, and stays close to that cover through every season, feeding mostly on green plants with some insects added in. Because it rarely crosses open ground, most confirmed Tennessee records come from trapping surveys or owl-pellet study rather than a direct sighting.
Status in Tennessee
NatureServe ranks the southern bog lemming S4, apparently secure, in Tennessee, and it’s native to the state. Its Tennessee foothold centers on the wet, grassy lowlands of the Mississippi River bottomlands, ground that’s easy to overlook but well suited to a rodent built to stay hidden in it.
Full species profile
