All 17 New Mexico records of the southern meadow jumping mouse fall in June, July, and August, no exceptions. For a species this poorly sampled, that’s a real signal, not noise: it lines up with when wet meadows and streamside sedge, the mouse’s preferred cover, are at their lushest before it slips into winter torpor.
The sites tell the same story. Bosque del Apache and Sevilleta national wildlife refuges sit along the Rio Grande’s wet bottomlands, and Cibola National Forest adds mountain meadow habitat, both classic jumping-mouse ground in an otherwise dry state.
NatureServe hasn’t assigned a rank for this species yet, in New Mexico or globally (SNR, GNR), so there’s no benchmark to compare it against. With so few records, a single good trapping season at one refuge could double the state’s known count.
Full species profile
