Kentucky’s entire confirmed file on the southern red-backed vole is 4 records, and all 4 come from Harlan County in the far southeast. Kentenia State Forest is named on 2 of them. That’s as narrow a footprint as a species can have in a state, and it makes Kentucky’s map a study in how little is known rather than how much.
A mountain outlier at the range’s southern tip
Harlan County holds the highest ground in Kentucky, and that geography is the point. This is a vole of cool northern and mountain forest, an animal of moss, rotting logs, and deep shade, and it follows those conditions south along the Appalachian highlands. The Harlan County records sit at the very end of that chain. Whether the species occupies other high ridges in eastern Kentucky is exactly the kind of question only targeted trapping can answer; a forest-floor vole doesn’t announce itself to casual observers.
Unranked, and under-surveyed
NatureServe leaves the species unranked (SNR) in Kentucky, meaning no formal grade has been assigned. The ground often suggested for it elsewhere in the state, Mammoth Cave National Park, Pennyrile Forest, and the karst preserves, sits far to the west of every confirmed record and has produced none so far. Four records from one mountain county make a presence, not a distribution.
Full species profile
