The salt marsh harvest mouse (Reithrodontomys raviventris), also known as the red-bellied harvest mouse and some times called as saltmarsh harvest mouse, is an endangered rodent endemic to the San Francisco Bay Area salt marshes in California. There are two distinct subspecies, both endangered and listed together on federal and state endangered species lists. The northern subspecies (Reithrodontomys raviventris halicoetes) is lighter in color and inhabits the northern marshes of the bay, and the southern subspecies (Reithrodontomys raviventris raviventris) lives in the East and South Bay marshes. They are both quite similar in appearance to their parent species, the Western harvest mouse. Its endangered designation is due to its limited range, historic decline in population and continuing threat of habitat loss due to development encroachment at the perimeter of San Francisco Bay.
Read more about Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse: Description and Comparison To Similar Species, Lifestyle, Habitat, Range, Conservation, Reference in 2009 Economic Stimulus Debate
Famous quotes containing the words salt, harvest and/or mouse:
“Unquiet wanderer
Draw the Glasnevin coverlet anew
About your head till the dust stops your ear,
The time for you to taste of that salt breath
And listen at the corners has not come;
You had enough of sorrow before death—”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“It is in these acts called trivialities that the seeds of joy are forever wasted, until men and women look round with haggard faces at the devastation their own waste has made, and say, the earth bears no harvest of sweetness—calling their denial knowledge.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“An epicure dining at Cree
Found a rather large mouse in his stew.
Said the waiter, “Don’t shout,
Or wave it about,
Or the rest will be wanting one too.””
—Anonymous.