The Black-tailed Deermouse lives in a narrow strip of the southern Mexican Pacific coast, between the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca. Its habitat is a type of coastal forest, which has been reduced to scattered fragments by tourist and agricultural expansion in recent decades.
Its tail is notably dark along its entire length, a feature that gives the Black-tailed Deermouse its name and contrasts with the lighter fur of other related species in the region.
Like other mice of its genus, it is a nocturnal forager that moves along the ground and low undergrowth vegetation in search of fallen seeds and fruit.
It is one of several endemic rodent species of the Mexican Pacific coast whose narrow distribution makes it especially vulnerable to coastal transformation.
Small rodent with greyish-brown fur on its back and white on its belly. Its tail is notably dark along its entire length, a feature that gives the Black-tailed Deermouse its name. It differs from other Peromyscus species on the southern Mexican Pacific coast by its very dark tail and its distribution, which is restricted to a specific strip between Guerrero and Oaxaca.
Small track, 1.3-1.8 cm long, with 4 fore toes and 5 hind toes. Small, elongated droppings, 3-5 mm long, left scattered along surface runways through vegetation in coastal undergrowth. It digs shallow burrows under roots, fallen logs or rocks, with the entrance semi-hidden among dense vegetation.
Dry tropical forest and coastal transition forest, in lowlands. Distributed along a narrow strip of Mexico's southern Pacific coast, between the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca.
Omnivorous, it feeds on seeds, fruits, fungi, and invertebrates from the coastal undergrowth where it lives.
Solitary and nocturnal, with a home range centred on the dense undergrowth of the coastal forest where it lives.
Its populations are considered to be in decline due to the continued loss of the coastal forest it depends on, which is increasingly transformed by tourist and agricultural development on Mexico's south Pacific coast.
Deforestation and fragmentation of the coastal forest due to development for tourism, agriculture and livestock farming on Mexico's south Pacific coast.
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