Southern plains woodrats are Kansas’s stick-house builders. Where soil and rock allow, they pile brush, cactus pads, and debris into den mounds that can stand four to five feet tall and get used and expanded across generations, which makes an occupied den one of the easiest signs of the species to find even when the animal itself stays hidden after dark.
The three sites named span nearly the width of the state, Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in the Flint Hills, Cheyenne Bottoms further west, and Cimarron National Grassland out on the shortgrass High Plains, tracking rocky outcrops and brushy draws rather than one single region.
Records run from March through July, peaking in May at 7 sightings, then drop to almost nothing by late summer. NatureServe ranks the species S4, apparently secure, in Kansas, and the most recent confirmed sighting on file is from September 2025.
Full species profile
