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Narrow-nosed Harvest Mouse

Reithrodontomys tenuirostris
EN · Endangered Rodentia Cricetidae
Size
6 to 7 cm + 7 to 8 cm
Weight
10 to 15 g
Activity
Nocturnal
Sociability
Solitary

Description

He has the focico notably narrower and longer than most of his relatives, a trait that gives him the name and which distinguishes him from other mouse harvesters from the Central American mountains. He lives in the high mountain fog and pasture forest stretching from southern Mexico to Central America, occupying some of the highest levels available for any mouse harvester in the region. Like the rest of his genre, he builds small spherical nests of thin grass elevated over dense vegetation, a construction that protects him from predators as well as from the cold temperatures of the high mountains where he lives.

How to identify it

Small rodent, gray brown fur, with the focico notably narrower and longer than that of other species of harvest mouse, and upper incisives longitudinally sourced. It differs from other mountain harvest mice of the region precisely by that characteristic focico.

Signs and tracks

Thin footprint, barely 1-1.3 cm, with 4 front fingers and 5 rear fingers. Thin and lengthy feces, 3-4 mm, left scattered by paths between pasture vegetation and mountain fog forest. Builds spherical grass nests, 8-10 cm in diameter, raised over dense vegetation, supported by several intertwined stems.

Habitat and range

The forest of high mountains and pastures, generally above 2000 m of altitude.Distributed by a mountain range from southern Mexico to Central America.

Diet

Granivorous, it feeds mainly on grass seeds, complemented with occasional pasture invertebrates and mountain fog forest.

Behaviour

Solitary and nighttime, it builds elevated spherical nests over dense vegetation, a behavior shared with the rest of the crop mice of its genre.

Conservation

Its populations are considered to be declining due to the continued loss of the forest of fog and pastures of high mountain from which it depends, in a fragmented distribution between different serras of southern Mexico and Central America.

Threats

Deforestation and degradation of high mountain fog and pasture forests by agricultural and livestock expansion in the mountains of southern Mexico and Central America.

Other accounts in Cricetidae

See all species accounts for rodents · Full species index

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