Small Mammals in the Great Dismal Swamp 
of Virginia and North Carolina 
Robert K. Rose, Roger K. Everton, Jean F. Stankavich, 
and John W. Walke 
Department of Biological Sciences 
Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia 23529 
ABSTRACT. — Small mammals were surveyed in a range of habitats 
in the Great Dismal Swamp of Virginia and North Carolina. The 
survey is based on three chronologically overlapping studies, each 
lasting 15-18 months and for which the results have been reported 
separately. A different trapping method was used in each of the three 
studies: nest boxes, Fitch live traps, or pitfall traps. Only two species 
of mammals, both arboreal, were taken in nest boxes, compared with 
10 and 9 species in Fitch live traps and pitfall traps, respectively. The 
Fitch live traps had a much higher catch rate per 1,000 trap-nights 
than either of the other methods. However, pitfall traps were more 
efficient at catching Sorex longirostris fisheri and Synaptomys cooperi 
helaletes, two mammals that were previously believed to be rare. 
Although the catch rates were comparable in nonforested habitats and 
in forest, more individuals and more species were obtained in the 
former. At least 5 of the 12 collected species do not occur in the 
forests. These studies added Sigmodon hispidus to the mammals 
known from the Dismal Swamp, and the results suggest that Peromyscus 
gossypinus no longer occurs in the swamp. 
The Great Dismal Swamp, which lies close to the Atlantic Ocean in 
southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina, is a wooded 
swampland that is flooded annually from December through March or 
April. The soils, which range from sandy through deep peat, are 
saturated throughout the winter, but in years of extreme drought, fires 
sometimes burn deeply into the organic soils and also destroy large 
areas of forest. These physical factors, flooding and fires, and attempts 
to control them, have had marked effects on the past and present biota 
of the swamp. 
The Dismal Swamp encompassed a diversity of habitats before 
human attempts to change it. Where the soils burned deeply, bald 
cypress trees, Taxodium distichum, often flourished when the normal 
hydroperiod returned. Where hot, shallow fires occurred, the regeneration 
of dense stands of Atlantic white cedar, Chamaecy paris thyoides , some- 
times resulted, and other conditions favored the development of large 
stands of cane, Arundinaria gigantea, the only native American bamboo. 
Brimleyana 16:87-101, July 1990 
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