Prairie dog Prairie dog Prairie dogs (genus Cynomys) are herbivorous burrowing rodents native to the grasslands of North America. The five species are: black-tailed, white-tailed, Gunnison's, Utah, and Mexican prairie dogs. They are a type of ground squirrel, found in the United States, Canada and Mexico. In Mexico, prairie dogs are found primarily in the northern states, which lie at the southern end of the Great Plains: northeastern Sonora, north and northeastern Chihuahua, northern Coahuila, northern Nuevo León, and northern Tamaulipas. In the United States, they range primarily to the west of the Mississippi River, though they have also been introduced in
Utah prairie dog consume flowers in shrubs. Utah prairie dogs choose only few species of grasses only that are native to the soil. Utah prairie dog shows polyandry behavior, and lays only one litter per year, which generally consists of 1 to 8 litter size. The breeding occurs generally from mid-March through early April. They build extensive "towns" of underground tunnels and chambers, each town composed of a population of members of an extended prairie dog family group called “clan”, and they forage from dawn to dusk. The species appears in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, with a status of Endangered,