If the predator is on the ground-which could be a snake, fox, raccoon, or any number of other creatures-the chipmunk will release a string of high-pitched sounds known as “ chips.” If it’s a hawk, owl, or other aerial predator, the chipmunk will emit much lower-pitched sounds, called “chucks.” 6.
In fact, research has suggested that woodchucks also tune into these alerts-and chipmunks heed woodchucks’ warnings even more frequently. Chipmunks have different warning calls for different predators.ĭespite their solitude, chipmunks send out warning calls to other chipmunks in the area when danger approaches. And they do, of course, pal around during mating season in the spring. If there’s enough food, water, and space in a certain woodsy acre of land, some 30 chipmunks might all be living there. But that’s not to say they don’t cover the same ground. Chipmunks are introverts, so to speak.Ĭhipmunks aren’t social creatures: They build separate burrows and spend most of their time alone. The chipmunks and mice included in the study are both diurnal, so it’s possible that they evolved with stripes to help obscure them from diurnal predators. how humans and koalas both have fingerprints). Since mice and chipmunks split from their common ancestor roughly 70 million years ago, the research suggests that this could be a case of convergent evolution-when different organisms evolve with similar traits (e.g. In a 2016 study, scientists found that a pigment-suppressing gene appears to be responsible for the stripes on the Eastern chipmunk and four-striped grass mouse. Chipmunks’ stripes may help them survive. That term, meaning a Swiss, is thought to have been inspired by the striped uniforms of the Pope’s Swiss Guard. But in Quebec, the striped critter has also been called un suisse.
The French word for chipmunk is tamia-a reflection of chipmunks’ genus, Tamias. Other early iterations included chitmunk, chipminck, chipmonk, chipmuck, and chipmuk.
Chris Jackson/Getty ImagesĪccording to the Oxford English Dictionary, chipmunk derives from the Ojibwa word ajidamoo, which actually described the American red squirrel rather than any chipmunk species. Swiss Guards at their post in Vatican City in 2017.
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