This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2008)

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^{[citation needed]} 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.^[1][2][3][4]

Tamias is Greek for "storer," a reference to the animals' habit of collecting and storing food for winter use.^[5]

The common name originally may have been spelled "chitmunk," from the native Odawa (Ottawa) word jidmoonh, meaning "red squirrel" (cf. Ojibwe, ajidamoo)^[6] The earliest form cited in the Oxford English Dictionary (from 1842) is "chipmonk," but "chipmunk" appears in several books from the 1820s and 1830s.^[7] 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."^[8] 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.^[9][10] 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.^[11]

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.^[9] 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.^[12]

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.^[13]

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.^{[citation needed]}

Chipmunks typically live about three years, although have been observed living to nine years in captivity.^[14]

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.^[15]

• 

  

  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^[16]

• Eastern chipmunk, Tamias striatus

Subgenus Eutamias

• Siberian chipmunk, Eutamias sibiricus

Subgenus Neotamias

• Alpine chipmunk, Neotamias alpinus
• Yellow-pine chipmunk, Neotamias amoenus
• Buller's chipmunk, Neotamias bulleri
• Gray-footed chipmunk, Neotamias canipes
• Gray-collared chipmunk, Neotamias cinereicollis
• Cliff chipmunk, Neotamias dorsalis
• Durango chipmunk, Neotamias durangae
• Merriam's chipmunk, Neotamias merriami
• Least chipmunk, Neotamias minimus
• California chipmunk, Neotamias obscurus
• Yellow-cheeked chipmunk, Neotamias ochrogenys
• Palmer's chipmunk, Neotamias palmeri
• Panamint chipmunk, Neotamias panamintinus
• Long-eared chipmunk, Neotamias quadrimaculatus
• Colorado chipmunk, Neotamias quadrivittatus
• Red-tailed chipmunk, Neotamias ruficaudus
• Hopi chipmunk, Neotamias rufus
• Allen's chipmunk, Neotamias senex
• Siskiyou chipmunk, Neotamias siskiyou
• Sonoma chipmunk, Neotamias sonomae
• Lodgepole chipmunk, Neotamias speciosus
• Townsend's chipmunk, Neotamias townsendii
• Uinta chipmunk, Neotamias umbrinus

Extinct:

• †Tamias aristus

See also

• Golden-mantled ground squirrel
• Alvin and the Chipmunks
• Chip 'n Dale

Notes

Further reading

• Baack, Jessica K. and Paul V. Switzer. "Alarm Calls Affect Foraging Behavior in Eastern Chipmunks (Tamias Striatus, Rodentia: Sciuridae)." Ethology. Vol. 106. Dec. 2003. 1057–1066.
• Gordon, Kenneth Llewellyn. The Natural History and Behavior of the Western Chipmunk and the Mantled Ground Squirrel. Oregon: 1943
• Nichols, John D. and Earl Nyholm (1995). A Concise Dictionary of Minnesota Ojibwe. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Eutamias is a genus of chipmunks within the tribe Marmotini of the squirrel family. It includes a single living species, the Siberian chipmunk (Eutamias sibiricus). The genus is often treated as a subgenus of Tamias, which is now restricted to the eastern chipmunk of North America.^[1] Neotamias, which now includes the western North American chipmunks, has also been included in Eutamias.^[2]

In addition to the Siberian chipmunk, several fossil species have been assigned to this genus:

• Eutamias ertemtensis Qiu, 1991 – late Miocene to Pliocene of China^[3]
• Eutamias lishanensis Qiu et al., 2008 – late Miocene of China^[4]
• Eutamias orlovi Sulimski, 1964 – Pliocene of Poland and Bulgaria^[5]
• Eutamias sihongensis Qiu and Long, 1986 – early Miocene of China^[6]
• Eutamias wimani (Young, 1927) – Pleistocene of China^[7]

Other chipmunks described from Eurasia include:

• Tamias allobrogensis Mein and Ginsburg, 2002 – Miocene of France^[8]
• Tamias atsali De Bruijn, 1995 – Pliocene of Greece^[9]
• Tamias eviensis De Bruijn et al., 1980 – Miocene of Greece^[10]

Tamias urialis Munthe, 1980, described from the Miocene of Pakistan, may be more closely related to Tamiops.^[6]

References

Literature cited

• Bruijn H. de. 1995. Sciuridae, Petauristidae and Eomyidae (Rodentia, Mammalia). Münchner Geowissenschaftliche Abhandlungen (A)28:87–102.
• Doukas, C. 2003. The MN4 faunas of Aliveri and Karydia (Greece). Coloquios de Paleontología, Vol. Ext. 1:127–132.
• Mein, P. and Ginsburg, L. 2002. Sur l'âge relatif des différents dépôts karstiques miocènes de La Grive-Saint-Alban (Isère). Cahiers scientifiques, Muséum d’histoire naturelle de Lyon 2:7–47.
• Musser, G.G., Durden, L.A., Holden, M.E. and Light, J.E. 2010. Systematic review of endemic Sulawesi squirrels (Rodentia, Sciuridae), with descriptions of new species of associated sucking lice (Insecta, Anoplura), and phylogenetic and zoogeographic assessments of sciurid lice. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 339:1–260.
• Piaggio, A. J. and Spicer, G. S. 2001. Molecular phylogeny of the chipmunks inferred from mitochondrial cytochrome b and cytochrome oxidase II gene sequences. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 20:335-350.
• Popov V.V. 2004. Pliocene small mammals (Mammalia, Lipotyphla, Chiroptera, Lagomorpha, Rodentia) from Muselievo (North Bulgaria). Geodiversitas 26(3):403–491.
• Qiu, Z. and Storch, G. 2000. The early Pliocene micromammalian fauna of Bilike, Inner Mongolia, China (Mammalia: Lipotyphla, Chiroptera, Rodentia, Lagomorpha). Senckenbergiana Lethaea 80(1):173–229.
• Qiu Z.-D., Zheng S.-H. and Zhang Z.-Q. 2008. Sciurids and zapodids from the late Miocene Bahe Formation, Lantian, Shaanxi. Vertebrata PalAsiatica 46(2):111–123.
• Sulimski, A. 1964. Pliocene Lagomorpha and Rodentia from Węże 1 (Poland). Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 9:149–244.
• Tyutkova, L.A. 2008. The Middle Miocene rodents of the Ashut locality (Turgay Depression). New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 44:437–442.
• Wang X.-M., Qiu Z.-D., Li Q., Tomida, Y., Kimura, Y., Tseng, Z.J. and Wang H.J. 2004. A new Early to Late Miocene fossiliferous region in central Nei Mongol: Lithostratigraphy and biostratigraphy in Aoerban strata. Vertebrata PalAsiatica 47(2):111–134.

Neotamias is a genus of chipmunks within the tribe Marmotini of the squirrel family. It contains 23 species, which mostly occur in western North America. Along with Eutamias, this genus is often considered a subgenus of Tamias.

Species

• Alpine chipmunk, Neotamias alpinus
• Yellow-pine chipmunk Neotamias amoenus
• Buller's chipmunk, Neotamias bulleri
• Gray-footed chipmunk, Neotamias canipes
• Gray-collared chipmunk, Neotamias cinereicollis
• Cliff chipmunk, Neotamias dorsalis
• Durango chipmunk, Neotamias durangae
• Merriam's chipmunk, Neotamias merriami
• Least chipmunk, Neotamias minimus
• California chipmunk, Neotamias obscurus
• Yellow-cheeked chipmunk, Neotamias ochrogenys
• Palmer's chipmunk, Neotamias palmeri
• Panamint chipmunk, Neotamias panamintinus
• Long-eared chipmunk, Neotamias quadrimaculatus
• Colorado chipmunk, Neotamias quadrivittatus
• Red-tailed chipmunk, Neotamias ruficaudus
• Hopi chipmunk, Neotamias rufus
• Allen's chipmunk, Neotamias senex
• Siskiyou chipmunk, Neotamias siskiyou
• Sonoma chipmunk Neotamias sonomae
• Lodgepole chipmunk, Neotamias speciosus
• Townsend's chipmunk, Neotamias townsendii
• Uinta chipmunk Neotamias umbrinus

References

• Musser, G. G.; Durden, L. A.; Holden, M. E.; and Light, J. E. (2010) "Systematic review of endemic Sulawesi squirrels (Rodentia, Sciuridae), with descriptions of new species of associated sucking lice (Insecta, Anoplura), and phylogenetic and zoogeographic assessments of sciurid lice." Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 339.
• Piaggio, A. J. and Spicer, G. S. 2001. "Molecular phylogeny of the chipmunks inferred from mitochondrial cytochrome b and cytochrome oxidase II gene sequences." Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 20: 335–350.