Species of Chipmunks in North America
Recognizing Chipmunks
Most chipmunks look similar. It is easiest to tell which kind you are seeing by where they are observed. Here are some basic facts about nine kinds of these lovable little creatures.
Eastern Chipmunk
The Eastern Chipmunk is found in the eastern United States. Oak, hickory, maple and beech trees are favorites. The Eastern chipmunk eats all kinds of berries, seeds, nuts, and fruits. He stuffs his cheek pouches with nuts and squeeze his cheeks with his paws to pop them out later. These nuts will be his food when he wakes during hibernation.
The Eastern chipmunk runs with his tail straight out behind him while others types hold their tails arched above their backs. He scampers about always busy about food—eating and storing.
Merriam’s Chipmunk
The Merriam’s is gray, except for brown stripes. He is one of the largest chipmunks, about 11 inches. It likes to eat pinon pine nuts, juniper berries and lupine seeds as well as the flowers and leaves of the manzanita bush. It lives in the woodlands in southern California, from San Francisco to New Mexico. It builds a small burrow and sleeps usually under the stump of a Ponderosa pine a yellow pine or a digger pine tree.
Townsend’s Chipmunk
This chipmunk builds a many chambered burrow under a yellow pine, redwood, hemlock or fir tree. They live in Washington and Oregon west of the Cascade Mountains, in California along the Pacific coast, and in the Sierra Mountains into Nevada.
Townsend’s are the darkest colored chipmunk with brown sides and a dark brown tail. He has dark brown and cream colored stripes and grows to be 9 to 11 inches long.He likes to eat berries, acorns, maple seeds, hazelnuts, and pinecone seeds.
Uinta Chipmunk
The Uinta eats mostly pinon pine nuts, juniper berries, cactus seeds, and yellow-pine seeds.
Uintas live in mountain regions of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona and California. They are 8 to inches long and unusual in coloring. Their tails back haunches and the top of their heads are gray their stripes are brown and bright white.
Alpine Chipmunk
This fellow is the smallest chipmunk at only 6 to 8 inches. He is also lighter colored than most with a reddish-brown black-tipped tail. His fur sticks up like it has just been washed.
You might see this chipmunk at Yosemite, King’s Canyon or the Sequoia National Park. Alpines are only found in the Sierra Mountains of California. They love pine seeds, nuts, and berries and also eat bird eggs and insects.
Least Chipmunk
This chipmunk is small at under nine inches. He varies in color from orange to gray. His black middle stripe runs to the end of his tail. His belly is white.
Leasts are found in desserts and mountains from North Dakota to New Mexico, in Arizona and California. They also live in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. They eat thimbleberries, blueberries, raspberries and strawberries. They also eat grasshoppers, beetles, and caterpillars.
The least is a good climber and may nest in abandoned woodpecker holes.
Lodgepole Chipmunk
This chipmunk lives in central California and in Nevada. He likes the west sides of mountains where there is more moisture. This chipmunk prefers Lodgepole pine trees. He eats pinon nuts and fungus, caterpillars, but mainly manzanita flowers and berries, so only lives where manzanita bushes grow.
Yellow-Pine Chipmunk
This chipmunk lives east of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon and Washington and along the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. They can be found in Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Idaho.
The yellow-pine is light-colored and has a white belly and neck. It has five black stripes and four white. He loves berries and seeds, also buds and fungi like mushrooms. Most especially, he likes seeds of knotweed, yarrow, larch, thistle, huckleberry, and yellow-pine trees.
Cliff Chipmunk
This little fellow has a thin black middle stripe on his back, a dark tail with red, brown and black on it. Its other back stripes are brown and grayish white. It grows 8 and 11 inches long.
The cliff chipmunk loves to climb. If he falls he twirls his tail to slow his fall and can land softy. He lives in the mountains of Wyoming, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico.He fills up on cactus fruit, bird eggs, grass seeds, insects, juniper berries and pinon nuts.
Of these chipmunks you are most likely to see the Eastern chipmunk or Least chipmunk as they have more diverse diets and can live in the more places. Others are restricted by the foods they can eat to definite regions.The chipmunk with his stuffed cheeks, is a delightful little animal. Each species, though similar, lives where his habits and diet can support him.
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