Zapus hudsonius

The meadow jumping mouse is the most widely distributed mouse in the family Zapodidae. Its range extends from the Atlantic coast in the east to the Great Plains west, and from the arctic tree lines in Canada and Alaska to the north, and Georgia, Alabama, Arizona, and New Mexico to the south. In mid-2014, the New Mexico subspecies of the meadow jumping mouse, Zapus hudsonius luteus, was listed as an endangered species under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Zapus hudsonius

Department of the Interior. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. National Conservation Training Center. 10/1997-8888 · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
meadow jumping mousePBDB
Sits inside
ZapusPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Rodentia
Life habit
saltatorialPBDB, for Zapus
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Mass
0.8 gWikidata

Time the record covers

At least 81 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 210 ka to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Pliocene — about 0 of 18 occurrencesPleistocene — about 18 of 18 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 18 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.6–2.5 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.5–2.4 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.4–2.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.3–2.2 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.2–2.1 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.1–2.0 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.0–1.8 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.8–1.7 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences1.1–1.0 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences1.0–924 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences924 ka–821 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences821 ka–719 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences719 ka–616 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences616 ka–513 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences513 ka–411 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences411 ka–308 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences308 ka–205 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences205 ka–103 ka Mya — about 3 occurrences103 ka–0 Mya — about 8 occurrences210 ka – 129 ka3.08 Mya0 Mya

18 occurrences of Zapus hudsonius on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

18 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

2 formations

Kingsdown — 37.20°N, 100.30°WMcPherson — 38.30°N, 97.60°W

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The named rock units Zapus hudsonius has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 14 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Zapus hudsonius and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Zapus hudsonius and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

468 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 18 sites for Zapus hudsonius, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

16 references

Each of the 18 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 4 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Zapus hudsonius

Credit
Department of the Interior. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. National Conservation Training Center. 10/1997-8888
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Zapus hudsonius was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itZapus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Zimmermann 1780)