Texas antelope squirrels are a Trans-Pecos specialty, built for the region’s rocky desert flats and sparse creosote cover, and every one of the state’s 245 records comes from that same corner: Big Bend, Guadalupe Mountains, and the Davis Mountains are the classic desert-scrub terrain where the species holds its Texas range.
Unlike most ground squirrels, this one stays active through summer heat by day, tail flicked up over its back like a sunshade, and the record count backs that up with an April peak and a smaller December bump rather than one clean seasonal signal, likely tracking cooler, more comfortable stretches for both squirrel and observer.
NatureServe rates it S4, Apparently Secure, in Texas, and the species is native to the desert country it’s mapped in; with 245 records placing it in the occasional tier of Texas mammal observations, the Trans-Pecos population reads as a well-documented, narrowly distributed one.
Full species profile
