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Chipmunks are small, striped squirrels. All species of chipmunks are found in North America, with the exception of the Siberian chipmunk, which is found in Asia.
Etymology and taxonomy
Chipmunks may be classified either as a single genus, Tamias, or as three genera: Tamias, which includes the eastern chipmunk; Eutamias, which includes the Siberian chipmunk; and Neotamias, which includes the 23 remaining, mostly western, species. These classifications are arbitrary, and most taxonomies over the twentieth century have placed the chipmunks in a single genus. However, studies of mitochondrial DNA show that the divergence between each of the three chipmunk groups is comparable to the genetic dissimilarity between Marmota and Spermophilus.
Tamias is Greek for "storer," a reference to the animals' habit of collecting and storing food for winter use.
The common name originally may have been spelled "chitmunk," from the native Odawa (Ottawa) word jidmoonh, meaning "red squirrel" (cf. Ojibwe, ajidamoo) The earliest form cited in the Oxford English Dictionary (from 1842) is "chipmonk," but "chipmunk" appears in several books from the 1820s and 1830s. Other early forms include "chipmuck" and "chipminck," and in the 1830s they were also referred to as "chip squirrels," probably in reference to the sound they make. In the mid-1800s, John James Audubon and his sons included a lithograph of the chipmunk in their Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, calling it the "Chipping Squirrel [or] Hackee." Chipmunks have also been referred to as "striped squirrels," "chippers," "munks," "timber tigers," or "ground squirrels," although the name "ground squirrel" usually refers to other squirrels, such as those of the genus Spermophilus.
Diet
Chipmunks have an omnivorous diet consisting of grain, nuts, fruit, berries, birds' eggs, small frogs, fungi, worms, insects and on occasions small mammals like young mice. At the beginning of autumn, many species of chipmunk begin to stockpile these goods in their burrows, for winter. Other species make multiple small caches of food. These two kinds of behavior are called larder hoarding and scatter hoarding. Larder hoarders usually live in their nests until spring. Cheek pouches allow chipmunks to carry multiple food items to their burrows for either storage or consumption.
Ecology and life history
Eastern chipmunks mate in early spring and again in early summer, producing litters of four or five young twice each year. Western chipmunks breed only once a year. The young emerge from the burrow after about six weeks and strike out on their own within the next two weeks.
These small mammals fulfill several important functions in forest ecosystems. Their activities harvesting and hoarding tree seeds play a crucial role in seedling establishment. They consume many different kinds of fungi, including those involved in symbiotic mycorrhizal associations with trees, and are an important vector for dispersal of the spores of subterranean sporocarps (truffles) which have co-evolved with these and other mycophagous mammals and thus lost the ability to disperse their spores through the air.
Chipmunks construct expansive burrows which can be more than 3.5 m in length with several well-concealed entrances. The sleeping quarters are kept extremely clean as shells and feces are stored in refuse tunnels.
Chipmunks play an important role as prey for various predatory mammals and birds, but are also opportunistic predators themselves, particularly with regard to bird eggs and nestlings. In Oregon, mountain bluebirds (Siala currucoides) have been observed energetically mobbing chipmunks that they see near their nest trees.
Chipmunks typically live about three years, although have been observed living to nine years in captivity.
Chipmunks in captivity are said to sleep for an average of about 15 hours a day. It is thought that mammals which can sleep in hiding, such as rodents and bats, tend to sleep longer than those that must remain on alert.
Northern Wisconsin Chipmunks, USA
Western Chipmunk inside Zion National Park, Utah, USA
Western Chipmunk in the Capitol Reef National Park, Utah, USA (39 s)
Eastern Chipmunk (Tamias striatus), Quebec, Canada
Eastern Chipmunk in the Erindale Park, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
Classification
Subgenus Tamias
Eastern chipmunk, Tamias striatusSubgenus Eutamias
Siberian chipmunk, Eutamias sibiricusSubgenus Neotamias
Alpine chipmunk, Neotamias alpinusYellow-pine chipmunk, Neotamias amoenusBuller's chipmunk, Neotamias bulleriGray-footed chipmunk, Neotamias canipesGray-collared chipmunk, Neotamias cinereicollisCliff chipmunk, Neotamias dorsalisDurango chipmunk, Neotamias durangaeMerriam's chipmunk, Neotamias merriamiLeast chipmunk, Neotamias minimusCalifornia chipmunk, Neotamias obscurusYellow-cheeked chipmunk, Neotamias ochrogenysPalmer's chipmunk, Neotamias palmeriPanamint chipmunk, Neotamias panamintinusLong-eared chipmunk, Neotamias quadrimaculatusColorado chipmunk, Neotamias quadrivittatusRed-tailed chipmunk, Neotamias ruficaudusHopi chipmunk, Neotamias rufusAllen's chipmunk, Neotamias senexSiskiyou chipmunk, Neotamias siskiyouSonoma chipmunk, Neotamias sonomaeLodgepole chipmunk, Neotamias speciosusTownsend's chipmunk, Neotamias townsendiiUinta chipmunk, Neotamias umbrinusExtinct:
†Tamias aristus
