Baby Chipmunk: Learn Chipmunk Trivia of the Day

In the animal world, there are a lot of “foodie” image of animals, some animals for food will forget to escape, or to take the food with them to escape. In the foreign social networking sites on the netizens shared an interesting scene: a baby chipmunk eating peanuts, due to the peanut rice is too big, coupled with the small baby chipmunk is too greedy, almost will be the baby chipmunk’s mouth broken, baby chipmunks do not want to give up the food.

Chipmunk size

Chipmunk babies are too small. Chipmunk babies are squirrel-like rodents, but much smaller than squirrels. Chipmunk babies usually weigh about 100 grams, and adults are about 110-150 millimeters long, so these peanuts are a great meal for chipmunk babies, so it’s hard for them to give up their food.

baby chipmunk

Baby chipmunks vary in size and color depending on the species. They range in size from 7 to 8 inches in length, weighing 32-50 grams in the smallest baby chipmunks at 11 inches in length, and 125 grams in the larger baby chipmunks.

baby chipmunk

Baby chipmunk coats range in color from reddish brown to gray, with distinctive dark or light stripes on the sides of the face and down the back and tail. They have white fur on their underside and a brown tail with varying shades of black near the tip. Baby chipmunks have large, glossy eyes and a characteristically thick tail that is 2-5 inches long, which makes them a favorite character for animators.

baby chipmunk

Baby chipmunks have small but prominent ears that face forward and small eyes and pointed mouths on either side of their heads. Although baby chipmunks have small mouths, their cheek pouches can expand to three times the size of their head. Baby chipmunks dig with their front paws, which have four sharp claws on each paw. Dirt is pushed to the ground and carried away in the animal’s cheeks.

baby chipmunk

Baby Chipmunk Recipes

In baby chipmunk recipes, the baby chipmunk’s food is close to that of squirrels, and baby chipmunks also feed on a variety of nuts, seeds, berries, flowers, and young leaves, and occasionally catch some insects for food. Only this time, the peanuts are too big for the baby chipmunks to bite open, so they can only stuff the peanuts and these foods in their mouths first and try to take them away.

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Baby chipmunks are also very fond of storing food critters, according to some statistics: baby chipmunks a warehouse food storage can usually reach up to 5-10 kg or so, while a baby chipmunk weighs only about 100 grams, the storage of food is often more than food food, so in order to store more food, baby chipmunks will use the cheek pouches and so on to smuggle a large amount of food, which is why the baby chipmunks are constantly put food in their mouths.

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Baby chipmunks like to store food, but they don’t have a strong memory for the location of the storage area, so they can easily forget where the food is stored, so some of the food will be planted by the baby chipmunks as seeds, which plays a certain degree of the role of “seeding”. Baby chipmunks like to store food because they need to prepare for hibernation. When winter is approaching, baby chipmunks need to eat a lot of food and accumulate fat, so they like to store food in order to prevent food shortage.

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Baby Chipmunk Habitat

Baby chipmunks are widely distributed in the wild, and are found in North America, northeastern Europe, and the forested areas of northern Asia. The population is very large, and because baby chipmunks are relatively small and cute, they are also a very popular pet, and many people keep these small animals.

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Baby chipmunks are usually seen ravaging bushes in a variety of environments from scrubland, to alpine forests, to scrubby deserts. Baby chipmunks build complex burrows that can be up to 3-4 meters in length. These burrows have several entrances, tunnels and sleeping chambers and are kept very clean. Shells and feces are stored in trash tunnels. Sleeping areas are enlarged and filled with shredded leaves to make the beds comfortable. Food is usually stored in the lowest tunnel to keep it cool and fresh. Some species of baby chipmunks are raised on logs and bushes are abandoned nests.

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Baby Chipmunk Diet

Baby chipmunks have a variety of omnivorous diets that consist mainly of nuts, fruits, seeds, berries, grains, bird eggs, small frogs, fungi, insects and worms. Food is stuffed into their large cheek pouches and brought back to the nest. At the beginning of fall, large amounts of food are gathered and placed in the burrow for storage for the winter.

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Some species of baby chipmunks can make a lot of food. These two behaviors are known as “storing” and “scatter hoarding”. Larger hoarders usually stay in the nest until spring. Baby chipmunks usually gather their food from grasses, rocks, and logs on the ground where they can hide from predators like hawks, foxes, coyotes, weasels, and snakes. They will climb trees to gather acorns and hazelnuts, however, they are not as agile as their cousin the squirrel.

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Baby chipmunks play several important roles in the forest ecosystem. Their activities include harvesting and hoarding tree seeds that play a vital role in seedling establishment. Baby chipmunks also play an important role as prey for a variety of predatory mammals and birds, however, they are also opportunistic predators in their own right, especially for eggs and chicks.

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Baby chipmunks living in urban areas are known to accept human handouts, however, human food is not stored, it is simply enjoyed as a novelty.

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Baby Chipmunk Behavior

Baby chipmunks are very active and very fast. They have a bird-like microchip that can be used when they sense danger, and can also be used as a female baby chipmunk for mating. Other communications include hand signals, such as waving their tails enabling them to communicate effectively with other species. Baby chipmunks are solitary animals and males and females do not pair up until breeding season. Although baby chipmunks hibernate from late fall to early spring, they do not store fat, but instead nibble slowly throughout the winter, eating every 2 weeks or so.

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Baby Chipmunk Breeding

Baby chipmunk breeding season occurs in early spring and then in early summer. They produce 4-5 pups after 30 days of gestation. Western baby chipmunks only breed once a year. The young are born in burrows where they remain for about 6 weeks. Within two weeks of their emergence from the burrow, they become independent and begin to gather their own food for the coming winter. Baby chipmunks are social animals, and both males and females are young. Baby chipmunks live 2 – 7 years in the wild.

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Baby Chipmunk Conservation Status

Although baby chipmunks are vulnerable to forest fragmentation, they are not currently threatened. However, baby chipmunks are considered a vulnerable species.