Natural History Wanderings

SF Gate reports

When a photo of a burrow-dwelling critter with an unusually long tail was captured by a trail camera in the rugged mountains of the Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve in 2019, researchers were baffled. The animal in question — a Santa Cruz kangaroo rat — hadn’t been seen in the area in more than 75 years, and was listed by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife as a “critically imperiled subspecies,” meaning it was at risk of becoming extinct.

Read more at Nearly extinct species seen in California