Mammals of Washington, Volume 2: University of Kansas Publications Museum of Natural HistoryDalquest, Walter Woelber
Science
Mammals of Washington, Volume 2: University of Kansas Publications Museum of Natural History
Dalquest, Walter Woelber
Mammals -- Washington (State)
The Great Basin Fauna of eastern Washington exists as three units, one
on the Columbian Plateau, another in southeastern Washington and the
third in the Yakima Valley area. The desert species of the Yakima Valley
are more closely related to the species of eastern Oregon than they are
to those of the Columbian Plateau. In a number of respects the Columbian
Plateau gives indications of age. The ground squirrel, _Citellus
washingtoni_, is related to, but specifically distinct from _Citellus
townsendii_ of the Yakima Valley and eastern Oregon. _Perognathus parvus
lordi_ is a well-marked race, as is _Microtus pennsylvanicus kincaidi_
and _Thomomys talpoides devexus_. We suppose that these species were
present on the Columbian Plateau at least through the Recent and
probably through all of Wisconsin Time. The loess deposits of eastern
Washington seem to have been laid down in Wisconsin and Recent times.
These indicate an arid climate which, although probably cool, was
probably not so cold as to exterminate these species. On the other hand,
some species that are now abundant on the Columbian Plateau seem to have
arrived there relatively recently. The black-tailed jack rabbit, for
example, was unknown in eastern Washington before 1870 when it appeared
in Walla Walla County. In 1905 it crossed the Snake River on ice and
invaded the Columbian Plateau where it rapidly spread over the whole
area. In January, 1920, it crossed the Columbia in two places and spread
over the Yakima Valley.
The known facts of this movement were sufficiently impressive to cause
the author to study rather closely the distribution of mammals in this
area. The collection of bones from a cave along the Columbia River near
Vantage, Grant County, on the Columbian Plateau, is especially helpful
in this respect. This cave was first visited in 1938. It had been the
habitat of owls, bats, and primitive man. The floor of the cave was
buried under from one to three feet of bat guano, much of which had
been hauled away for fertilizer. Here and there we found traces of fire
and occasional piles of mussel shells. Some arrowheads and one beautiful
obsidian spear head were found, all buried in guano and about midway
between the floor and the top of the deposit. Remains of mammals were
abundant through the bat guano, and apparently had been brought to the
cave both by man and owls. The jaw of a mountain sheep was found. This
species was known to be present when the first settlers reached the area
(Cowan, 1940: 558). The remains of smaller mammals included gopher,
pocket mouse, muskrat, meadow mouse, deer mouse, coyote and white-tailed
jack rabbit. No remains of cottontail, black-tailed jack rabbit or
harvest mouse were found. The absence of the cottontail was especially
surprising, in that fully thirty skulls of white-tailed jack rabbits
were noted. The grasshopper mouse (_Onychomys_) was also absent, but
this species is not common. The two rabbits and the harvest mouse,
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