Kansas marks the western edge of the southern flying squirrel’s range, and its 54 records hug that edge tightly. Douglas County supplies 29 of them, and every county on the list, Leavenworth, Cherokee, Shawnee, and the rest, sits in the state’s eastern tier, where oak and hickory woods still follow the river corridors. West of there the trees thin into open tallgrass and the records stop.
An after-dark animal on a sparse calendar
This is a nocturnal glider that most Kansans never see, even where it lives overhead. Reports crest in March and April with 7 and 10 records, and rise again in July and from November into December. Winter doesn’t quiet these squirrels: they don’t hibernate, and on cold nights they den up together in tree cavities. A calendar built largely from nest-box checks and deliberate night surveys says as much about who went looking as about the squirrels. It’s also worth noting that the most recent confirmed Kansas record dates to March 2022.
Vulnerable at the range edge
NatureServe ranks the species S3 in Kansas, vulnerable, a more cautious grade than its secure standing rangewide. Out on the range edge, every patch of mature deciduous woods matters, and the wooded river corridors and timbered fingers reaching into the tallgrass are its Kansas foothold. It holds no separate state listing.
