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Uinta ground squirrel

Urocitellus armatus · Squirrels · Small game

Uinta ground squirrel (Urocitellus armatus): Body length 280-303 mm. Grayish-brown or buff coat, lighter belly, black on upper side of tail. This profile does not establish whether taking it is legal anywhere.

Check rules for a place and date

Certified rules currently represented in Hunt: coverage in development. This is coverage, not a legal answer.

Scientific name
Urocitellus armatus
Family
Sciuridae
In North America
Native
Range
Southern Montana, southeastern Idaho, western Wyoming and north-central Utah.
Biology

How to identify it

Body length 280-303 mm. [1][2]

Grayish-brown or buff coat, lighter belly, black on upper side of tail. [1][2]

Sides of the head light brown with gray; lighter contour around the eyes. [1][2]

Short bushy tail, about 65 mm. [1][2]

Field knowledge

Where it lives

Dry meadows, pastures and cultivated fields in high valleys and montane grassland and shrub-steppe nearly to timberline, at 1,219-2,438 m; burrows in loose soil. [1][2]

Field knowledge

How it behaves

Active roughly April-August, dormant the rest of the year [1][2]

Lives in large colonies but keeps distance from neighbours [1][2]

Six call types: chirp, churr, squeal, squawk, teeth-clatter and growl [1][2]

Eats green vegetation and seeds; some invertebrates and vertebrates [1][2]

Regulatory handoff

Take status not established

North Ground has not established meaningful legal take of this species. That is a gap in the evidence, not a finding that it is protected or that it is open.

Geospatial intelligence

Where it is found

Southern Montana, southeastern Idaho, western Wyoming and north-central Utah.

Biology

Sources

Every claim above is attributed to one of these published sources.

  1. NatureServe · reviewed 2026-09-30

    NatureServe

  2. University of Michigan Museum of Zoology · reviewed 2026-09-30

    University of Michigan Museum of Zoology