The southern grasshopper mouse is a pint-sized desert predator, and Arizona’s 2,148 records for it come almost entirely from museum and survey collections rather than casual photos, because this fierce little hunter is nocturnal and seldom seen in the open.
A mouse that hunts
Despite weighing about as much as a few coins, the southern grasshopper mouse is a carnivore. It stalks insects, scorpions, and centipedes across the desert floor, shrugging off scorpion stings that would down an ordinary rodent, and it tips its head back to give a thin, high call that carries across the night. Pairs hold and defend hunting territories rather than living in loose colonies.
Desert grassland ground
Its records concentrate in the southern deserts and grassland basins, with Pima and Cochise counties well ahead, and reach across the low scrub of the state’s western and central valleys. It favors open sandy and gravelly ground where it can run down prey, in Sonoran and Chihuahuan desert and dry grassland alike.
Status in Arizona
The southern grasshopper mouse is native to Arizona and ranked S5, secure, across its range in the state. Its secretive, meat-eating habits simply keep it off most wildlife-watchers’ lists, so the survey record, not the photo record, is what shows how widespread it really is.
Full species profile
