Chipmunk Information and Control

Lake Tahoe, CA & Stateline & Carson City, NV

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.

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

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. - Wikipedia