OKR Habitat

Where does the Ord's Kangaroo Rat live?

Bernice landscape

The Ord’s Kangaroo Rat is an unusual mammal and the only species of kangaroo rat to live in Canada. It lives in southeastern Alberta and southwestern Saskatchewan. It is also found in desert habitats all the way from central Mexico to southern Canada and from the Rocky Mountains to the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Kangaroo rats like to live in sand dunes that are found in Saskatchewan in places like the Great Sandhills, the Burstall Hills, and the Cramersburg Hills. It lives in a semiarid climate and likes areas that have lots of loose sand and not a lot of thick plant growth. The kangaroo rat makes burrows that are 1 to 1.3 metres below ground. The burrows are an upside-down U-shaped with a flat bottom. The burrow can be up to 8 centimetres in diameter. Its home range is about 1700 square metres.

Bernice's drawing of their habitat

Plants in the Saskatchewan habitat of the kangaroo rat include fescue grass, grama grass, sandbur, tumbleweed, Russian thistle, silver berry, and lance-leaved psoralea.

plants picture Kale's photo of plants

Some animals in the kangaroo rat’s habitat are bull snakes, rattle snakes, burrowing owls, short-eared owls, badgers, skunks, weasels, foxes, coyotes, common poor wills, grouse, partridges, and insects like the ten-lined June beetle.