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Boston's
Emerald Necklace
Eastern
Chipmunk
Tamias striatus (Linnaeus, 1758)
by Stephen Baird
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Eastern Chipmunks are very
common and can be found throughout Boston's Emerald Necklace from
the Back Bay Fens to Olmsted Park to Franklin Park and many backyards.
-
Eastern
Chipmunks weigh 3 to 5 ounces with a length of 8 to 11 inches.
They have four toes on front feet and five toes on back feet. The
mouth pouches hold large amounts of seeds and nuts that are carried to
burrow food storage chambers for winter feeding. The pouches are also
used to carry dirt away from burrow tunnel entrances to hide entrances
from predators.
- Name
given by Algonquian Ojibwa (Chippewa) "chetamon" or "acitamon" evolved
to "chitmonk" and "chitminck." Possibly for the chipmunk's loud
territorial vocal "chips" and monk like posture when feeding the common name eventually evolved to chipmunk.
- Latin name Tamias
Striatus provided by Linnauus in 1758 means striped storer for
chipmunks' stripes and behavior of hoarding food
- Français: Tamia rayé
- Polski: Pręgowiec amerykański
- Russian: Burunduk (Siberian chipmunk Tamias sibiricus)
- Chinese: 西伯利亞花栗鼠 (Siberian chipmunk Tamias sibiricus)
- Chipmunks live an average of just over 1 year in the wild. Half of the late summer
and fall chipmunk population were born that year. Some live 2-3 years.
- Chipmunks
are omnivorous-- primarily eating seeds,
grains, fruits, and nuts such as acorns. They also eat worms,
salamanders, bugs, slugs, mushrooms, bird eggs and young mice.
Chipmunks hoard nuts, seeds and other hard foods for the winter torpor.
- Chipmunks dig an extensive burrow 10-30 feet deep
with multiple tunnel entrances and multiple chambers for sleeping,
storing different foods, refuge and defecating. The one-foot wide by
eight inch high sleeping chamber is lined with grasses and leaves is
also used for the nursery and winter torpor. The burrow must be dug
below the frost line for chipmunks to survive the winter torpor.
Territory usually extends about fifty feet from the burrow.
- Chipmunks do not hibernate but lower their heart
rate, breathing rate and body temperature to 40 degrees in a deep sleep
called a torpor. They wake every 4-9 days and raise their body
temperature to 94 degrees, eat some of their food hoard they sleep on
in their main burrow chamber and defecate in another sub chamber. They
return to the main chamber and the torpor sleep. Chipmunks
begin the winter torpor in late October and emerge in the
spring in March. Some will scamper out of the burrow during a
warm mid winter thaw to seek food from other storage sites near the
burrow.
- Reproduction:
- Males will set up territory by thumping the
ground with their hind legs. Competition between males through noisy chases and fighting can cause serious injury.
- Females will call males with "chips" near their burrow nests.
- Eastern
chipmunks mate twice a year in early spring March-April and mid summer
June-July. Litters average 4-5 and up to 9 young.
- Young chipmunks are born without fur and blind. They leave the burrow nest
in 6 weeks and become completely independent shortly after leaving the nest in 6-8 weeks.
- Males do not actively care for young.
- Predators: Chipmunks are a source of food for
many
reptiles, birds and mammals. Great horned owls, red tailed hawks, peregrine falcons,
coyotes, foxes, and large snakes are some of
the chipmunk predators here in the Emerald Necklace.
- Literature and Folklore and Myth - Chipmunks scamper and sing
through books, myths and film.
- Thornton
Waldo Burgess, Massachusetts author and
naturalist, wrote a series of Bedtime Stores Books with animal
anthropomorphic characters including Striped Chipmunk (Peter Rabbit
Learns from Striped Chipmunk, Striped Chipmunk Has a Secret, Striped
Chipmunk’s Secret Joke). Visit the Burgess home sites Green Briar
and Laughing
Brook Nature Centers in
Sandwich and Hampden. Web site: http://www.thorntonburgess.org
- Native American
folktale "Chipmunk and Bear" or "How the Chipmunk got his Stripes"
- "Alvin and the Chipmunks" musical recordings and "Chip and Dale" animated films are popular contemporary fictional chipmunks.
NOTE: 8 x
10 matted and framed photographs are
available for
$100 membership donations or 11 x 17 matted and framed
photographs are available for $500 membership donations to Friends of
Jamaica Pond.
Contact Stephen Baird at info@communityartsadvocates.org
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