Welcome to WhiskerWiki

Welcome

WhiskerWiki was created to aid field biologists, specimen preparators, students, and mammal enthusiasts in the identification of shrews, moles, and rodents in the United States of America. A significant effort has been made to ensure that the taxonomic names and species ranges provided are current and supported by published research and consultation with species experts. However, please keep in mind that the taxonomy of some groups still remains problematic; errors may exist in range maps for understudied, difficult, or cryptic groups; morphological characters may not always be robust or clear; there may be clinal variation in phenotype and genotype across different geographic scales (elevation, latitude, etc.); and there are likely exceptions to every rule. A plus side to this is that we hope you realize (with excitement) that there is still much to be discovered and many mysteries to be solved when it comes to small mammals.

The dropdown menu in the upper left corner will help navigate you to the main pages of this site, but you can also search for species, terms, keys, species lists for counties and states, etc. in the search bar above. If you would like to contribute to the development of these pages or any existing pages, or if you see an error and wish to report it, please reach out through the Whiskerwiki.org User Feedback Form.

WhiskerWiki news

[

 {
   "title": "We’re excited to announce that rodent calls are available for some species on WhiskerWiki!",
   "type": "sounds",
   "date_posted": "2026-10-22",
   "summary": "This new resource is made possible thanks to the support of the Pasch Lab at the University of Arizona and the many valuable sound submissions contributed to Xeno-canto."
 },
 {
   "title": "WhiskerWiki has been updated to MDD version 2.5 (released July 28, 2026).",
   "type": "data",
   "date_posted": "2026-10-22",
   "summary": "The American Society of Mammalogists Mammal Diversity Database (MDD), which tracks the latest taxonomic changes to living and recently extinct species and higher taxa of mammals released version 2.5 of their database on July 28, 2026. This version includes one species name changed based on nomenclatural priority; Microdipodops oregonus was changed to Microdipodops californicus (Zijlstra, 2026)."
 },
 {
   "title": "WhiskerWiki has been updated to MDD version 2.4 (released January 2, 2026).",
   "type": "data",
   "date_posted": "2026-05-17",
   "summary": "The American Society of Mammalogists Mammal Diversity Database (MDD), which tracks the latest taxonomic changes to living and recently extinct species and higher taxa of mammals released version 2.4 of their database on January 2, 2026. This version includes Hafner et al.'s (2025) revision of kangaroo mice, Microdipodops, which includes 4 new species."
 },
 {
   "title": "Coming soon! WhiskerWiki will be updated to MDD version 2.4 (released January 2, 2026).",
   "type": "upcoming",
   "date_posted": "2026-01-08",
   "summary": "The American Society of Mammalogists Mammal Diversity Database (MDD), which tracks the latest taxonomic changes to living and recently extinct species and higher taxa of mammals released version 2.4 of their database on January 2, 2026. This version includes Hafner et al.'s (2025) revision of kangaroo mice, Microdipodops, which includes 4 new species. Within the next few weeks, expect updates to pages for Microdipodops pallidus and M. megacephalus, and pages for newly recognized species: Microdipodops albiventer, M. oregonus, M. polionotus, M. ruficollaris."
 },
 {
   "title": "WhiskerWiki has been updated to MDD version 2.3 (released September 1, 2025).",
   "type": "data",
   "date_posted": "2025-11-06",
   "summary": "The American Society of Mammalogists Mammal Diversity Database (MDD), which tracks the latest taxonomic changes to living and recently extinct species and higher taxa of mammals released version 2.3 of their database on September 1, 2025. This version did not differ from version 2.2 for species of shrews, moles, and rodents found in the United States of America. Sorex fontinalis is still (tentatively) included in Sorex cinereus under MDD v2.3; however, some authors (and WhiskerWiki) still retain Sorex fontinalis as a distinct species."
 },
 {
   "title": "WhiskerWiki has been updated to MDD version 2.2 (released June 13, 2025).",
   "type": "data",
   "date_posted": "2025-07-12",
   "summary": "The American Society of Mammalogists Mammal Diversity Database (MDD), which tracks the latest taxonomic changes to living and recently extinct species and higher taxa of mammals released version 2.2 of their database on June 13, 2025. This version includes the following taxonomic updates, which are now incorporated into WhiskerWiki: subgenera Thomomys and Megascapheus were elevated, Cryptotis floridanus was split from Cryptotis parvus. Sorex fontinalis is now (tentatively) included in Sorex cinereus under MDD v2.2; however, some authors (and WhiskerWiki) still retain Sorex fontinalis as a distinct species."
 },
 {
   "title": "New state and county-level species lists",
   "type": "geography",
   "date_posted": "2025-04-07",
   "summary": "State pages now aggregate species lists at the state level and serve as portals to access county-level data.",
   "link": "https://whiskerwiki.org/index.php/Category:State"
 },
 {
   "title": "New state pages",
   "type": "geography",
   "date_posted": "2025-03-23",
   "summary": "New state pages will now aggregate species lists at the state level and serve as portals to access county-level data (coming soon!).",
   "link": "https://whiskerwiki.org/index.php/Category:State"
 },
 {
   "title": "Full taxonomy backbone pages are complete!",
   "type": "taxonomy",
   "date_posted": "2024-08-31",
   "summary": "We're excited to announce that a full scaffolding of pages representing all Linnaean names for Rodentia and Eulipotyphla are now populated with all respective child taxa as page links to aid in navigation on the wiki.",
   "link": "https://whiskerwiki.org/index.php/Rodentia"
 }

]

We’re excited to announce that rodent calls are available for some species on WhiskerWiki! New - This new resource is made possible thanks to the support of the Pasch Lab at the University of Arizona and the many valuable sound submissions contributed to Xeno-canto. Oct 22, 2026
WhiskerWiki has been updated to MDD version 2.5 (released July 28, 2026). New - The American Society of Mammalogists Mammal Diversity Database (MDD), which tracks the latest taxonomic changes to living and recently extinct species and higher taxa of mammals released version 2.5 of their database on July 28, 2026. This version includes one species name changed based on nomenclatural priority; Microdipodops oregonus was changed to Microdipodops californicus (Zijlstra, 2026). Oct 22, 2026
WhiskerWiki has been updated to MDD version 2.4 (released January 2, 2026). - The American Society of Mammalogists Mammal Diversity Database (MDD), which tracks the latest taxonomic changes to living and recently extinct species and higher taxa of mammals released version 2.4 of their database on January 2, 2026. This version includes Hafner et al.'s (2025) revision of kangaroo mice, Microdipodops, which includes 4 new species. May 17, 2026

See previous news items

WhiskerWiki Growth

WhiskerWiki has been growing since 2022, one species account, specimen photo, and comparison guide at a time. We track that progress here, from written accounts to the growing catalog of species, higher taxa, and places they connect.

WWGrowing since November 2022