White-footed mice are woodland and edge specialists, equally at home in a fencerow, a riverside stand of cottonwoods, or the brushy margin of a badlands coulee. North Dakota’s 746 records for the species come entirely from GBIF, with zero iNaturalist entries, a pattern typical of a small, fast, mostly nocturnal mouse that ecologists document through live-trapping surveys rather than casual photography.
Records climb steadily from May, peak in August at 224, and fall off through the winter, tracking when trapping fieldwork tends to run rather than any true dormant season, since white-footed mice stay active year-round under snow and leaf cover. Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Lake Sakakawea, and J. Clark Salyer National Wildlife Refuge all offer the wooded draws and riparian brush this species favors across its North Dakota range.
Full species profile
