Its range extends from the Atlantic coast in the east to the Great Plains west, and from the arctic tree lines in Canada and Alaska to the north, and Georgia, Alabama, Arizona, and New Mexico to the south.

This broad dorsal stripe is of a darker brown color, with black tips, giving it a somewhat a grayish appearance.

The male genitalia are inconspicuous except during mating season when the scrotal sac becomes enlarged and more visible.

With the exception of the Aye-Aye, the meadow jumping mouse is the only mammal to have eighteen teeth with a dental formula of: 1/1, 0/0, 1/0, and 3/3.

As a whole the female jumping mouse is slightly larger, and heavier than the male, but their weight varies quite a bit depending on the season.

[5] up to 35 g (1.2 oz) or larger before hibernation Meadow jumping mice prefer a habitat which is high in humidity.

High numbers are usually found in grassy fields, and thick vegetated areas with streams, ponds, or marshes nearby.

Then in 1909 Seton stated that it can creep through the grass without hopping, and then suddenly can leap out a distance of ten to twelve feet.

The initial leap of the jumping mouse when startled from a squatting position is long; the following hops are shorter but much more rapid.

Afterwards, the jumping is followed by movement of all four limbs, in an almost doggy-paddle-like form, with its head held high above the water.

The meadow jumping mouse is also capable of diving, and a maximum distance of four feet was recorded.

[5] The jumping mouse is an excellent digger; it usually burrows in a depression, and begins to dig horizontally with its front limbs, once inside it also uses its powerful hind feet to throw out the loose soil.

[5] The meadow jumping mouse is primarily nocturnal, but has been captured in the late evening of a cloudy moist day.

[2] The food preference of the meadow jumping mouse consists of seeds, but they also eat berries, fruit and insects.

For this study many caged jumping mice were fed forty species of plants representing 20 different families.

Examples of such creatures are common house cats, a northern pike, rattlesnakes, and a green frog (Lithobates clamitans).

[1] As of July 2014, the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse, subspecies Zapus hudsonius luteus, is federally listed in the United States as endangered.

A jumping mouse found near Quebec in 1787, characterized as Dipus canadensis, was described and illustrated by Major-General Thomas Davies in 1797 to the Linnean Society of London.

[8] In 1833, Constantine S. Rafinesque described the shrew species Sorex dichrurus based on a specimen he found in a proprietary museum near Niagara Falls on the New York/Ontario border.