The white-toothed woodrat is a little-known resident of southeastern Colorado. Open occurrence databases hold 139 records for it in the state, all from specimen and survey collections, and its story here is still being untangled.
A recently recognized species
For a long time this animal was lumped with the white-throated woodrat, and only fairly recently was it treated as a distinct species of the southern plains and rocky Southwest. That reshuffle means many older Colorado records were filed under other names, so the modern map of where it lives is thinner and more provisional than for better-studied woodrats. Careful specimen work, not casual sightings, is what pins it down.
Rocky breaks of the southeast
In Colorado the white-toothed woodrat keeps to the rocky canyons, juniper breaks, and shrubby draws of the far southeast, with records concentrated in Baca, Las Animas, and Otero counties near the Oklahoma and New Mexico lines. It is a nocturnal, solitary packrat that shelters among rocks and heaps dens of gathered sticks and debris, feeding on the tough leaves and fruit of desert shrubs and juniper.
Status in Colorado
NatureServe ranks the white-toothed woodrat S2, imperiled, in Colorado, reflecting both its narrow southeastern range in the state and how recently it was split off as its own species.
Full species profile
