Two new records of mammals from the Davis Mountains, Jeff Davis County, Texas

Occasional Papers

Museum of Texas Tech University

Number 252 18 April 2006

Two New Records of Mammals from the
Davis Mountains, Jeff Davis County, Texas

Steve Kennedy and Clyde Jones

Abstract

Two species new to the Davis Mountains and Jeff Davis County are reported and discussed
briefly.

Key words: Dasypus , Davis Mountains, Microtus.

The Davis Mountains have been subjected to
numerous mammalian investigations since the work
of Bailey (1905). Stangl et al. (1994), Genoways and
Baker (1979), and Schmidly (2002), among others,
have mentioned some of the diversity of mammals of
the Davis Mountains.The Davis Mountains fill most
of Jeff Davis County; the elevations range from about
5,000 feet at Fort Davis to more than 8,000 feet at the
top of Mount Livermore. They are basically rugged
masses of igneous rocks (Schmidly 1977).

On 10 October 2005, the senior author retrieved
some of the remains of an armadillo ( Dasypus novem-
cinctus) from alongside State Highway 17 about 4 km
north of Fort Davis (UTM 13 0609567 3389527). The
specimen was badly mangled and decayed; only some
fragments of the carapace and some of the feet were
recoverable, but these were sufficient to provide for a
positive identification. To our knowledge, this repre¬
sents the first record of the armadillo from Jeff Davis
County and the Davis Mountains.

Although armadillos frequently are killed on roads
(Loughry and McDonough 1996), this record of the arma¬
dillo from the Davis Mountains in Jeff Davis County is,
at least, a bit enigmatic. Schmidly (1977) stated that the
evidence suggests that the armadillo is one of the rarest
mammals in the Trans-Pecos.

DeBaca (2005) stated that there is no evidence
of armadillos living in or near the Davis Mountains.
Furthermore, interviews with employees of the Texas
Parks and Wildlife Department, who travel roads in
the vicinity of Fort Davis at least five days a week,
reported that they had never seen an armadillo in the
area. However, a resident of Fort Davis stated that he
had seen an armadillo in the same general area as the
specimen reported above.

Dasypus novemcinctus has shown remarkable
range expansion during the last 100 years (McBee
1999). She went on to explain that the possible rea¬
sons for its northward expansion include progressive

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Occasional Papers, Museum of Texas Tech University

changes in climate, overgrazing, and removal of large
predators. Also, drought and cold temperatures are
probably the factors most limiting its continued move¬
ment northward. Suttkus and Jones (1999) found
armadillos most active within a range of temperature
of 17.9-25°C in Louisiana.

Other records of the armadillo from west of the
Pecos River include reports from near Balmorhea,
Reeves County (Cleveland 1970), and from Reeves,
Pecos, and Terrell counties (Schmidly 2004). These
records are based mostly upon reports of sightings of
armadillos in these areas (Cleveland 1970; Schmidly
2004) and are unverified by specimens. McBee and
Baker (1982) stated that the armadillo occurs through¬
out Texas, except the Trans-Pecos and Panhandle areas.
Sightings of these mammals were reported in the area
of Fort Stockton (Hermann 1950). Goetze (1998) ex¬
amined 60 specimens of armadillos from 25 counties
on the Edwards Plateau.

The specimen of an armadillo reported herein is
further evidence that the influence of the Pecos River
on the geographic distributions of mammals has dimin¬
ished in recent times (Jones and Parish 2001), and that
the details of the presence and distributions of mammals
in the Trans-Pecos are imperfectly known.

Remains of the armadillo reported herein are
deposited in the Collection of Recent Mammals of the
Natural Science Research Laboratory, the Museum of
Texas Tech University.

In 2001. some remains of Microtus mogollo-
nensis were obtained at an archeological site in Wolf
Den Canyon, Davis Mountains Preserve, Jeff Davis
County, Texas (Mallouf 2002). The remains included
a partial upper jaw with cheek teeth, one dentary with
two cheek teeth, and two large cheek teeth. After an
initial identification, subsequent comparisons of these
materials with other specimens in the Natural Science
Research Laboratory, the Museum of Texas Tech Uni¬
versity, confirmed the identifications.

Organic materials at the site allowed for carbon
dating of the stratum where the remains were found.
The subfossil remains were estimated to be from the
middle Holocene, 3,700 years before the present. Fos¬
sil M. mogotlonensis from the Apache Mountains of
west Texas were determined to be from the Pleistocene
(Stangl et al. 1994).

Other species of small mammals recovered from
the same stratum as the Mogollon vole included Re-
ithrodontomys megalotis , Peromyscus sp., and Neotoma
sp. These three taxa of mammals occur in relative
abundance in the area of the Davis Mountains today.

Current nearby distribution of the Mogollon vole
includes the Sacramento Mountains of New Mexico
and the Bow and adjacent areas of the Guadalupe
Mountains of New Mexico and Texas. This vole tends
to be one of the most arid inhabitants of the mountain¬
dwelling meadow voles. Typically, it tends to inhabit
meadows in open ponderosa pine forests and mixed
coniferous forests. Where one or more other species of
vole occurs with it, it tends to be restriced to the drier
sites (Findley and Jones 1962). If suitable understory
plants are available for food and cover, pinyon-juniper
woodland would be inhabited on occasion.

Seemingly suitable habitats in the Davis Moun¬
tains, which consisted of ponderosa pine forests and
mixed coniferous forests, with understories mostly of
grasses, were searched and trapped, but no Mogollon
voles were found (DeBaca 2005). Previous drought
conditions and excessive overgrazing may have led to
these voles being extirpated in the area. Subfossil and
fossil occurrences are concentrated mostly within the
area now inhabited, but most are at lower elevations
(Harris 1985). This supports a lowering of vegetation
zones in past geologic times.

The Microtus specimens reported herein are
deposited in the private archaeology collections of the
senior author.

Kennedy and Jones— Two New Records of Mammals from the Davis Mountains

3

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to John Karges for assistance in
determining the precise locality for the armadillo re¬
ported herein. We are grateful to Arthur H. Harris for
the initial identification of the remains of the Microtus,

as well as for assistance in the identification of the other
remains of mammals. We thank Mark Lockwood and
Linda Hedges for providing information about the
distribution of mammals in the area.

Literature Cited

Bailey, V. 1905. Biological survey of Texas. North American
Fauna, Bureau of Biological Survey 25:1-222.

Cleveland, A. G. 1970, The current geographic distribution
of the armadillo in the United States. Texas Journal
of Science 22:90-92.

DeBaca, R. S. 2005. Distribution of mammals in the Davis
Mountains, Texas and surrounding areas: a report
to the Nature Conservancy. Unpublished, xiv +
15-390 pp.

Findley, J. S., and C. J. Jones. 1962. Distribution and
variation of voles of the genus Microtus in New
Mexico and adjacent areas. Journal of Mammal¬
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Genoways, H. H., and R. J. Baker (eds.). 1979. Biological
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Goetze, J, R. 1998. The mammals of the Edwards Plateau,
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Loughry, W. J., and C. M. McDonough. 1996. Are road kills
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Author s addresses:

Steve Kennedy Clyde Jones

P.0. Box 434 Department of Biological Sciences and

Fort Davis, Texas 79734 the Museum of Texas Tech University

Lubbock, TX 79409
e-mail: cjmajones@aol.com

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