Stephens’ woodrat is a juniper specialist, feeding heavily on juniper foliage and berries and often stripping bark to line its stick nest, which ties it closely to the pinyon-juniper woodland of the Colorado Plateau and its southern edge. Its Arizona records come from Yavapai, Coconino, and Navajo counties, with Yavapai holding well over half.
Records concentrate sharply in May, with a second, smaller run from July through September and almost nothing the rest of the year, a pattern that likely tracks when field surveys ran more than any true seasonal activity, since this nocturnal rodent stays active year-round inside its den. NatureServe hasn’t yet assigned Arizona a numeric rank for the species.
Full species profile
