Tamias striatus
Copyright 2003, Charles Stephen
Tamias striatus
Copyright 2003, Charles Stephen
The Eastern Chipmunk is a
small ground squirrel. It has reddish-brown fur with a white
belly and a white stripe, bordered by two black stripes, on
each side. Eastern Chipmunks grow up
to eleven inches long. This animal lives in open
woods, forest edges, and brushy areas. They dig
burrows
up to ten feet long. Usually the main burrow has enlarged
cavities
for storing food. Inside the burrow, chipmunks will build a
nest with leaves. The entrance to the burrow is a hole about
two inches wide. Eastern Chipmunks breed
in early Spring. They only have one litter
of three to five babies. Copyright, University of
Kansas Natural History Museum Copyright, Barbara
Simpson Eastern Chipmunks eat a
wide variety of foods, especially acorns
and nuts. Other foods they eat include: seeds,
some plants, fruits, berries, slugs, snails, insects, baby
birds, bird eggs, salamanders, small snakes, young mice,
mushrooms, and carrion. Favorite nuts and seeds
are from such plants as oaks, maples, American Beech,
Sweetgum, Black Cherry, Flowering Dogwood, hickories,
strawberries, buttercup, and weedy plants. Eastern Chipmunks store
large amounts of food (nuts and seeds) in their burrows.
This is called a cache.
Food caches are supposed to get the chipmunks through the
Winter. Chipmunks will spend much of their time running back
and forth from trees to their burrows building their
caches. These squirrels collect
most of their food from the ground, but they will climb oak
trees for acorns and shrubs
for fruit. Eastern Chipmunks
hibernate,
starting in late Fall, but they wake every two weeks or so
to eat from their cache. Chipmunks communicate
with each other with chatter. They can also be heard chewing
on nuts quite loudly. Predators
of Eastern Chipmunks include hawks, owls, Red Fox, Raccoon,
and house cats. Eastern Chipmunks help
many plants and fungi
by spreading seeds and spores.
When a chipmunk eats fruit from a plant, it will often poop
out the seeds somewhere else and a new plant can grow. It
does the same thing when it eats a mushroom and leaves
spores in a new place.
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Relationships in Nature:
Sharp-shinned Hawk Great Horned Owl
Relationship to Humans:
Eastern Chipmunks help people by controlling insect populations. They can be a nuisance to farmers who grow corn, only when there are many chipmunks nearby.