Texas kangaroo rat

Description

The species' range encompasses a small area in north-central Texas and adjacent Oklahoma (Caire et al.1989,Schmidly,2004).Surveys in Texas from 1985 to 1987 yielded occurrences in Cottle,Hardeman,Wilbarger,and Wichita counties (Jones et al.,1988);one specimen was obtained in 1989 in Motley County (Martin and Matocha,1991),and a new county record for Childress County was obtained in 1987 (Wahl,unpublished data).Apparently,there are few,if any,populations remaining in Archer,Baylor,Clay,and Montague counties (southeastern part of the range in Texas).The first report from Oklahoma was by Bailey in 1905 (Carter et al.1985);the species has been very infrequently recorded since then (e.g.,Baumgardner,1987;Caire et al.1989).A 1988 survey yielded no observations of this species in Oklahoma (Moss and Mehlhop-Cifelli,1990),but subsequent surveys have yielded a few specimens.