The Cozumel Harvest Mouse lives only on Cozumel Island, where it shares its territory with other mammal species also endemic to this Mexican Caribbean island. It forms part of a small island fauna community that evolved in isolation from the mainland for thousands of years.
The Cozumel Harvest Mouse is one of the most rarely recorded Harvest Mice in its genus, with very few confirmed sightings in recent decades despite the relative accessibility of the island where it lives. Like other Harvest Mice, it builds small, spherical nests of woven grass elevated above the vegetation. This trait is shared with its mainland relatives despite many generations of island isolation. Its extreme rarity, combined with the small size of the island it occupies, makes it one of the Mexican rodents at greatest risk of extinction.
Small rodent with greyish-brown fur and longitudinally grooved upper incisors, a distinctive feature of the entire harvest mouse genus. It differs from other rodents on Cozumel Island by its exclusive distribution to that island enclave. Its extreme rarity makes confirmed field identification exceptional.
Tiny track, barely 1-1.3 cm, with 4 fore toes and 5 hind toes, rarely documented given the extreme rarity of the Cozumel Harvest Mouse. Tiny, elongated droppings, 3-4 mm long, presumably left scattered along surface runways through vegetation, like other harvest mice, although recent field records are scarce. It builds, like other members of the genus, spherical nests of woven grass elevated above dense vegetation.
Lowland jungle and grassland vegetation on Cozumel Island, in insular lowlands. Endemic to this Mexican Caribbean island off the coast of Quintana Roo, with no natural presence outside it.
Granivorous, it presumably feeds on grass seeds, supplemented with invertebrates, like the rest of the Harvest Mice of its genus.
Solitary and nocturnal, with poorly documented behaviour given the extreme rarity of confirmed field records in recent decades.
Only a handful of records of the Cozumel Harvest Mouse have been confirmed in recent decades. This places its populations, already restricted to a single small island, in an extremely vulnerable situation.
Tourism and urban development transforming the native vegetation of Cozumel Island, intense hurricanes that can affect the entire population given the island's small size, and risk of predation by introduced species.
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