The spotted ground squirrel is a mammal in Colorado. Open occurrence databases hold 146 records for it here, of which 36 are iNaturalist observations and the rest specimen and survey records.
A squirrel of sandy plains
The spotted ground squirrel is one of the smallest ground squirrels in North America, sandy-brown with a scatter of pale spots across the back that break up its outline against bare soil. It needs loose, sandy or gravelly ground it can dig, so in Colorado it belongs to the southeastern plains rather than the mountains. Records concentrate in Las Animas, Pueblo, Bent, and Baca counties and the shortgrass and sand-sage country of the Arkansas River valley and the Comanche National Grassland, thinning out northward across the eastern plains.
Awake for half the year
This is a true hibernator. It emerges in spring, spends the warm months above ground foraging on seeds, green shoots, and insects, then retreats underground and sleeps through the cold season. That rhythm is why sightings gather in the warm months and all but vanish in winter: for much of the year the animal is sealed in a burrow, not absent from the plains.
Status in Colorado
NatureServe ranks the spotted ground squirrel S4, apparently secure, in Colorado, G5 globally, and the IUCN lists it as least concern. It is native and not at risk statewide, though its plains habitat is patchy, so its modest tally reflects both a genuinely local distribution and how easily a small, quiet burrower goes unnoticed.
Full species profile
