![]() It’s illegal to keep a chipmunk as a pet in certain states. Because the Siberian chipmunk has been known to harbor ticks that carry Lyme disease, Europe has since labeled it an invasive species. People in other parts of Europe began keeping Siberian chipmunks as pets during the 1960s, and the creature made its way to the wild there, too. The lone outlier, the Siberian chipmunk ( Tamias sibiricus), lives across Russia and eastern Asia. ![]() Of the 25 known chipmunk species, 24 are native to North America. All but one chipmunk species live in North America. Biologist Bernd Heinrich once tested out the capacity himself after finding a roadkill victim and filling its cheeks with sunflower seeds. According to National Geographic, the cache can sometimes match a chipmunk’s own body weight. Like other types of ground squirrels (not to mention hamsters, monkeys, and platypuses), chipmunks can stuff a lot in their expandable cheek pouches. They’re not opposed to snagging a bird egg or newborn baby bird, either. The omnivorous rodents also chow down on fungi, fruit, insects, worms, tubers, flower buds, and snails. Chipmunks aren’t picky eaters.Ī chipmunk’s diet isn’t confined to seeds and nuts. Instead, they hoard a bunch of seeds and nuts in their burrows and awaken every so often to eat. Chipmunks hibernate, too-but they don’t bulk up beforehand. Chipmunks hibernate, but not like bears do.Īs evidenced by Katmai National Park’s annual Fat Bear Week, bears pack on an impressive amount of weight before hibernation so their bodies have fat to burn during the food-less winter months. If the predator is on the ground-which could be a snake, fox, raccoon, or any number of other creatures-the chipmunk will release a string of high-pitched sounds known as “ chips.” If it’s a hawk, owl, or other aerial predator, the chipmunk will emit much lower-pitched sounds, called “chucks.” 6. In fact, research has suggested that woodchucks also tune into these alerts-and chipmunks heed woodchucks’ warnings even more frequently. Chipmunks have different warning calls for different predators.ĭespite their solitude, chipmunks send out warning calls to other chipmunks in the area when danger approaches. And they do, of course, pal around during mating season in the spring. If there’s enough food, water, and space in a certain woodsy acre of land, some 30 chipmunks might all be living there. ![]() But that’s not to say they don’t cover the same ground. Chipmunks are introverts, so to speak.Ĭhipmunks aren’t social creatures: They build separate burrows and spend most of their time alone. The chipmunks and mice included in the study are both diurnal, so it’s possible that they evolved with stripes to help obscure them from diurnal predators. how humans and koalas both have fingerprints). Since mice and chipmunks split from their common ancestor roughly 70 million years ago, the research suggests that this could be a case of convergent evolution-when different organisms evolve with similar traits (e.g. In a 2016 study, scientists found that a pigment-suppressing gene appears to be responsible for the stripes on the Eastern chipmunk and four-striped grass mouse. Chipmunks’ stripes may help them survive. That term, meaning a Swiss, is thought to have been inspired by the striped uniforms of the Pope’s Swiss Guard. But in Quebec, the striped critter has also been called un suisse. ![]() The French word for chipmunk is tamia-a reflection of chipmunks’ genus, Tamias. Other early iterations included chitmunk, chipminck, chipmonk, chipmuck, and chipmuk. Chris Jackson/Getty ImagesĪccording to the Oxford English Dictionary, chipmunk derives from the Ojibwa word ajidamoo, which actually described the American red squirrel rather than any chipmunk species. Swiss Guards at their post in Vatican City in 2017.
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