Mammals: About 54 species of mammals occur in the Big Thicket (not counting extirpated species), including such species as the Virginia opossum ("Didelphis virginiana"), nine-banded armadillo ("Dasypus novemcinctus"), short-tailed shrew ("Blarina carolinensis"), American beaver ("Castor canadensis"), Baird's pocket gopher ("Geomys breviceps"), southern flying squirrel ("Glaucomys volans"), white-tailed deer ("Odocoileus virginianus"), eastern spotted skunk ("Spilogale putorius"), American mink ("Mustela vison"), river otter ("Lontra canadensis"), coyote ("Canis latrans"), gray fox ("Urocyon cinereoargenteus"), bobcat ("Lynx rufus"), and Rafinesque's big-eared bat ("Corynorhinus rafinesquii") a threatened species in Texas. Although many of these species are common, they can be highly secretive and are seldom seen in the dense woodlands. Many prominent species that once occurred in the Big Thicket have been extirpated from their historical ranges. Examples include hog-nosed skunks ("Conepatus leuconotus"), red wolves ("Canis rufus"), ocelots ("Leopardus pardalis"), and jaguars ("Panthera onca"). In 1902 ornithologist Harry Church Oberholser reported what he considered reliable accounts of jaguars in east Texas, including one killed south of Jasper a few years earlier, along the Neches River near Beaumont, and in the timber south of Conroe.