An Ecological Study of the Mammals of the Badlands and the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming

Stebler, A

The mammalian habitats of each region studied are identified. These are for the Badlands: the upland buffalo grama grass association, the upland cottonwood-willow association, the denuded bluffs, the bluff yellow pine-red cedar association, the lowland buffalo-grama grass association, and the lowland cottonwoood-willow association. For the Black hills are the following associations: The western yellow pine, the bur oak, the mountain prairie, and the riparian. Of the 37 species and subspecies of mammals collected, only two species are, so far as known, common to both regions. The strongest manifestation of habitat preference is shown by two subspecies, both of which appear to occur only on the bluffs of the Badlands. The Badland's races of both Eutamias minimus and Neotoma cinerea are strikingly pallid in pelage color, whereas the Black Hills races are decidedly brighter and darker. The pelage hues, furthermore, correlate closely with the general color tone of the soils upon which these forms live. The correlation between the general color tone of the pelage and that of the soil seems most close in those habits where the soil is exposed extensively through a lack of a heavy cover of vegetation.

An Ecological Study of the Mammals of the Badlands and the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming

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