Identification:
- Reddish brown in color with a white belly
- Two white stripe on the back with five black stripes bordering the white stripes.
- Length 8 1/2 - 11 3/4
- Height 3 1/8 - 4 3/8
- Weight 2 1/4 - 5 oz
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left lateral view of |
dorsal view of skull |
ventral view of skull |
Habitat:
Mature deciduous forest and forest edges, especially rocky areas, farmlands, and they also like areas around suburban and rural homes. They prefer areas with stonewalls, rotten logs, and heavy cover. They live in burrows up to thirty feet in length. These burrows are well concealed. Chipmunks carries the extra dirt away form their burrows in their mouth for prevention of a mound at the entrance, unlike most rodents. The chipmunks home range is usually 1/2 acre, but the adult only defends 50 feet around the burrow entrance. Chipmunks usually roam during the early morning and late evening.
Characteristics:
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From the late fall till early spring (usually March) chipmunks hibernate. These months they are inactive and live off of what food they have gathered over the summer months.
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From March to November they concentrate on gathering food for the winter and mating.
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The chipmunk mates one to two times a year and usually gives birth to three to five offspring's. It usually takes four to six months for a chipmunk to reach sexual maturity.
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The lifespan of a chipmunk averages two to five years, but they are cases of them living up to eight years.
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Chipmunks of both sexes use two chattering calls to communicate. A very high pitched chip-chip-chip that they repeat very rapidly (up to 130 times per minute) and a slower lower-pitched chuck-chuck- chuck. This noise is how the chipmunk got its name.
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The chipmunks major predators are long-tailed weasels, hawks, foxes, bobcats, and house cats.
Taxonomy Hierarchy:
- Kingdom: Animalia
- Phylum: Chordata
- Subphylum: Vertebrata
- Class: Mammalia
- Order: Rodentia
- Family: Sciuridae
- Genus: Tamias
- Species: Tamias striatus
Diet:
Chipmunks primarily feed on nuts such as hickory nuts, acorns, beechnuts, and walnuts. They also feed on small seeds, and small animal life. Through the late summer and early fall they store most of their food in their burrows. All of the chipmunks food is transported to the burrows by large internal cheek pouches.
Range:
From Virginia, to northwest parts of South Carolina, on south to Mississippi, eastern Oklahoma, eastern Kansas, eastern Iowa, eastern North Dakota and in southeastern Canada.
Click here for Distribution Map
Sources:
1. US Geological Survey
2. Gao, Gary; Dyke, Dave; Comer, Gary Jr. Ohio State University Fact Sheet. http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/1034.html
3. Jiasuey and Allaire of Wellesley College (1998) http://www.wellesley.edu/Activities/homepage/web/Species/achipmunk.html
4. Linzey, Don and Brecht, Christy of Wythville Community College http://www.discoverlife.org/nh/tx/Vertebrata/Mammalia/Sciuridae/Tamias/striatus/