Thirteen-lined ground squirrel reaches its southern edge in Texas, where records cluster in the Panhandle and North Texas at Palo Duro Canyon State Park, Caprock Canyons State Park, and Caddo National Grasslands. Nationally the species is a Great Plains and Upper Midwest animal, with the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin carrying far more records than Texas’s 165, so this is a thinner, marginal slice of a much larger northern range.
Texas reports spread across April through June, with a secondary bump in September, roughly tracking when this day-active squirrel emerges from hibernation to feed and when late-summer young are most visible above ground, though survey timing shapes that pattern too. With 165 records, the species sits in the occasional tier among Texas mammals, and NatureServe still rates it secure (S5) statewide despite occupying only the fringe of its range here. Short grass and mowed turf, not untouched prairie, are what keep it going in Panhandle towns and grasslands alike.
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