Yellow-nosed cotton rat records in Texas sit in the high grassland and woodland of the Trans-Pecos sky islands, with Big Bend, the Guadalupe Mountains, and the Davis Mountains carrying the record set. It favors grassy slopes and pinyon-juniper woodland at elevation, habitat that’s genuinely scarce and patchy in Texas, which helps explain why sightings stay clustered around a handful of protected mountain ranges.
The monthly pattern leans toward winter and early spring, with January, March, and October together holding more than half the state’s 122 records, an unusual shape likely shaped by when field surveys happened to run rather than a true seasonal swing.
NatureServe ranks it S3, Vulnerable, in Texas, a step below its G4 global standing, underscoring how thin its Texas foothold really is.
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