Endangered
Giant kangaroo rat
Dipodomys ingens
The giant kangaroo rat is an endangered species of heteromyid rodent endemic to California.
Appearance
It measures about 15 cm (5.9 in) in length, not among them its long, tufted tail, and is tan or brown in color. Kangaroo rats are primarily seed eaters, but also eat green plants and insects.
Range and habitat
The giant kangaroo rat is an endangered species of heteromyid rodent endemic to California.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
In crisis
In 1987, United States Fish and Wildlife classified the kangaroo rat as an endangered species, chiefly due to habitat loss. This species was declared endangered on both the federal and California state levels in the 1980s. Besides some projects currently underway in the Carrizo Plain National Monument, studies need to be conducted on populations whose range overlaps with private lands.
Recovery of the giant kangaroo rat can be achieved when the three largest populations in eastern Kern County, Carrizo Plain Natural Area, and the Panoche Region along with the populations in the Kettleman Hills, San Juan Creek Valley and Cuyama Valley are protected and managed appropriately. In a unique case, a giant kangaroo rat population was found during the construction of the second track at Buttonwillow Raceway Park.
Giant kangaroo rat is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Giant kangaroo rat, Wikidata item Q302207. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
