Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

East­ern chip­munks are widely dis­trib­uted through­out the east­ern United States and south­east­ern Canada. Their range ex­tends from Nova Sco­tia, east to Saskatchewan and south to Ok­la­homa, where they oc­cupy the east­ern part of the state. Their range in­cludes east­ern Louisiana and the Florida Pan­han­dle. This species does not oc­cupy the penin­sula of Florida or the coastal plains re­gion, from Florida to North Car­olina. They are not na­tive to New­found­land, but have been in­tro­duced. (Linzey, 2008; Sny­der, 1982)

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic
  • introduced
  • native

Habi­tat

In the west­ern por­tion of their range, east­ern chip­munks in­habit wooded areas, river val­leys and are in­ter­spersed in habi­tats dis­tant from de­cid­u­ous forests. This ground dwelling mam­mal in­hab­its open de­cid­u­ous forests where cover is read­ily avail­able in the form of stumps, logs or rocky out­crops. Their prime habi­tat is ma­ture beech-maple forests, but they will oc­cupy bushy areas and conif­er­ous forests, how­ever, swampy sites are avoided. (Da Silva, et al., 2002; Kurta, 1995; Linzey, 2008)

• Terrestrial Biomes
• forest

• Other Habitat Features
• urban
• suburban
• agricultural

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

East­ern chip­munks are small ro­dents with gray­ish to red­dish brown fur and a dis­tin­guish­ing yel­low­ish to red­dish patch on their rumps. Their pelage color and pat­tern varies by ge­og­ra­phy. Their un­der­parts are white. Their sides and back have five dark stripes; the longest stripe oc­curs along their mid­line. Be­tween their dark lat­eral stripes, there is a nar­row white band. Light and dark stripes occur on their face around their eyes. Their tail is hairy, but not bushy and is some­what flat­tened. Their rounded ears mea­sure less than 20 mm. Their forefeet have four toes and their hind­feet have five. East­ern chip­munks have large cheek pouches lo­cated on ei­ther side of their mouth. The stripe along their body dis­tin­guishes them from all other ro­dents ex­cept least chip­munks. How­ever, least chip­munks' stripes ex­tend to the base of their tail, whereas, east­ern chip­munks' stripes stop be­fore their rump patch. East­ern chip­munks are no­tice­ably larger than least chip­munks, which helps to dis­tin­guish be­tween the two species. (Kurta, 1995; Sny­der, 1982)

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Range mass

  66 to 115 g

  2.33 to 4.05 oz

• Range length

  255 to 266 mm

  10.04 to 10.47 in

• Average basal metabolic rate

  0.813 W

  AnAge

Re­pro­duc­tion

East­ern chip­munks are polyg­a­mous. Dur­ing a brief es­trous pe­riod, fe­males mate with mul­ti­ple males. Typ­i­cally fe­males in es­trous stay within their home range and males come from out­side areas to mate. On av­er­age, males travel 170 me­ters from their bur­row to mate. (Da Silva, et al., 2002; Kurta, 1995; Saun­ders, 1988)

• Mating System
• polygynous

East­ern chip­munks pro­duce two lit­ters per year; one in early spring and one in mid­sum­mer. Their ges­ta­tion pe­riod lasts 35 days. Lit­ters con­sist of 2 to 5 al­tri­cial young, which are born blind and hair­less in un­der­ground nests. Lit­ter sizes are de­pen­dent on re­source avail­abil­ity and the age of the mother. (Da Silva, et al., 2002; Kurta, 1995; Saun­ders, 1988)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• viviparous

• Breeding interval

  Eastern chipmunks have 2 breeding seasons.

• Breeding season

  One of their breeding seasons begins in February and lasts until April and the second begins in June and ends in August.

• Range number of offspring

  2 to 5

• Average number of offspring

  5

  AnAge

• Average gestation period

  35 days

• Average gestation period

  31 days

  AnAge

• Average weaning age

  40 days

• Average time to independence

  2 months

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)

  1 years

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female)
  Sex: female

  187 days

  AnAge

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)

  1 years

• Average age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male)
  Sex: male

  228 days

  AnAge

At birth, young weigh just 3 grams. The neonates are weaned 40 days after birth. After wean­ing, fe­males move to a new bur­row, leav­ing their young in the natal bur­row until they dis­perse. Young be­come in­de­pen­dent two months after birth. Males dis­perse far­ther than fe­males. Fe­males stay close to their home bur­row with their range some­times over­lap­ping. Most young do not breed until the spring fol­low­ing their birth. (Da Silva, et al., 2002; Kurta, 1995; Smith, 2005)

• Parental Investment
• female parental care

Lifes­pan/Longevity

Most east­ern chip­munks sur­vive less than two years, but there are ac­counts of chip­munks liv­ing up to eight years. (Kurta, 1995)

• Range lifespan
  Status: wild

  2 to 8 years

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  8 years

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  3.0 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

• Average lifespan
  Status: captivity

  8.0 years

  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research

Be­hav­ior

East­ern chip­munks are di­ur­nal and most ac­tive dur­ing mid-morn­ing and mid-af­ter­noon. They are soli­tary and ter­ri­to­r­ial, es­pe­cially close to their bur­row. For­ag­ing oc­curs mostly along the ground, but east­ern chip­munks are pro­fi­cient climbers. East­ern chip­munks cache food but do not have the fat stores to hi­ber­nate. Caches are marked with an ol­fac­tory cue to aid in re­lo­ca­tion. This cue is de­pen­dent on the sub­strate and the mois­ture con­tent of the seeds. Caching be­hav­ior is de­ter­mined by the mois­ture con­tent of the en­vi­ron­ment. Be­cause ol­fac­tory cues are mois­ture de­pen­dent, scat­ter-hoard­ing in mesic cli­mates are quickly pil­fered. In more ag­gres­sive east­ern chip­munks, larder hoard­ing is more ben­e­fi­cial be­cause a sin­gle, large cache is eas­ier to de­fend than sev­eral small caches. (Kurta, 1995; Pen­ner and De­ven­port, 2011)

In a study of cap­tive chip­munks, east­ern chip­munks demon­strated less suc­cess than least chip­munks in cache pil­fer­ing be­hav­ior. How­ever, cache de­fend­ing be­hav­iors were de­terred in this study. Least chip­munks ben­e­fit from the larger caches of east­ern chip­munks, which store up to four times as many seeds. East­ern chip­munks spend more time dig­ging and search­ing for caches be­cause least chip­munks hide seeds away from ob­jects, which could be used as mark­ers. Also, least chip­munks' ol­fac­tory cues are weak in com­par­i­son. It is less prof­itable for east­ern chip­munks to rob the caches of least chip­munks. Both species showed signs of being very se­lec­tive in choos­ing cache lo­ca­tions to pre­vent their caches from being robbed. (Kurta, 1995; Pen­ner and De­ven­port, 2011)

• Key Behaviors
• motile

• Range territory size

  800 to 6,000 m^2

Home Range

East­ern chip­munks are some­what tol­er­ant of hu­mans and will some­times bur­row under build­ings. Their bur­row is ex­ca­vated less than one meter below the sur­face and has in­ter­con­nected gal­leries up to 10 me­ters in length. Their bur­row is typ­i­cally in the cen­ter of a roughly cir­cu­lar home range, the pri­mary use area has a ra­dius of 15 to 25 me­ters from the en­trance. One room is used as a nest site and the oth­ers are used for food stor­age. Their nest is made out of crushed leaves and mea­sures 30 cm in di­am­e­ter. The sur­face en­trance to their bur­row mea­sures 5 cm across and does not con­tain ex­ca­vated soil. Chip­munks dis­trib­ute soil to the sur­round­ing areas or use it to close an old en­trance to the bur­row. Win­ters are spent un­der­ground. Typ­i­cal pop­u­la­tion den­sity is 10 to 22 chip­munks per hectare. Home range size varies from 800 to 6,000 m2. In the early sum­mer and early fall, their range is the largest. Breed­ing males have the largest home range. East­ern chip­munks de­fend their home ranges. Some dis­per­sal, up to 0.9 km, will occur. In­di­vid­u­als that do not dis­perse have home range lengths of up to 0.5 km through­out their life­time. (Da Silva, et al., 2002; Kurta, 1995; Linzey, 2008)

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

East­ern chip­munks are ex­tremely vocal and pro­duce a va­ri­ety of chips, trills and calls to alert oth­ers to the pres­ence of preda­tors or for ter­ri­tory de­fense. Ter­ri­to­r­ial calls lead to ag­gres­sive be­hav­ior when an­other in­di­vid­ual is pre­sent. High in­tense chases es­tab­lish hi­er­ar­chies among groups of males com­pet­ing for ac­cess to fe­males, in­di­vid­u­als dis­play ag­gres­sive and sub­mis­sive pos­tures dur­ing these be­hav­iors. Sniff­ing hindquar­ters and touch­ing noses pro­vides chem­i­cal sig­nals dur­ing these in­ter­ac­tions. Alarm calls can be costly and the ben­e­fits must out­weigh the costs to jus­tify such be­hav­ior. East­ern chip­munks give three dis­tinct calls: chip­ping, chuck­ing and trilling. Chip­ping and chuck­ing are re­peated calls last­ing up to thirty min­utes. Trills are shorter in du­ra­tion and are given dur­ing pur­suit by a preda­tor. The other calls are typ­i­cally given when a preda­tor is spot­ted. (Baack and Switzer, 2000; Da Silva, et al., 2002; Saun­ders, 1988)

East­ern chip­munks react to alarm calls by al­ter­ing their for­ag­ing be­hav­ior and be­com­ing more alert. After an alarm call, they ex­pend greater en­ergy and spend more time ex­posed at feed­ing sta­tions be­cause they de­crease the amount of food car­ried to caches after hear­ing the call. East­ern chip­munks in­crease vig­i­lance, run shorter more di­rect dis­tances and delay emer­gence from bur­rows after hear­ing an alarm call, which sug­gest that the calls di­rectly af­fected be­hav­ior. Trill vo­cal­iza­tions are com­pli­cated and more dif­fi­cult to un­der­stand than the other two types of calls. Adult fe­males are most likely to trill when close (10 m from the bur­row) to rel­a­tives. Fe­males do not dis­perse as far as males and have more rel­a­tives liv­ing close to their bur­rows. Ju­ve­nile fe­males trill at a lower rate than adults, this may in­di­cate their higher pre­da­tion risk or smaller fit­ness gain. Males trill far­ther from the bur­row, 100 m or greater. This could be be­cause males are un­cer­tain of kin­ship and trilling would put an in­di­vid­ual at higher risk. Trilling oc­curs in all ac­tive sea­sons, not just dur­ing ju­ve­nile emer­gence, which dis­counts the hy­poth­e­sis that trilling is a mech­a­nism of parental care. The pri­mary func­tion of trill calls is likely to warn nearby rel­a­tives of preda­tors. This in­creases an in­di­vid­ual’s over­all fit­ness by help­ing re­lated in­di­vid­u­als. (Baack and Switzer, 2000; Da Silva, et al., 2002; Saun­ders, 1988)

• Communication Channels
• acoustic
• chemical

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

Food Habits

Di­etary sta­ples in­clude fruit, seeds and nuts. This is sup­ple­mented with in­sects, earth­worms, slugs, bird’s eggs and mush­rooms. Food is trans­ported within cheek pouches lo­cated on ei­ther side of the mouth. East­ern chip­munks demon­strate food caching be­hav­ior through­out the year, but are par­tic­u­larly ac­tive in the early au­tumn to pre­pare for win­ter. East­ern chip­munks scat­ter-hoarder and will leave caches through­out their home range or in one of the rooms their bur­row. They do not have the fat stores to hi­ber­nate, but in­stead enter pe­ri­ods of tor­por. Chip­munks may arise fre­quently to feed and dur­ing mild win­ter weather they may for­age above ground. (Kurta, 1995; Saun­ders, 1988)

• Primary Diet
• herbivore
  • granivore
• omnivore

• Animal Foods
• eggs
• insects
• terrestrial worms

• Plant Foods
• seeds, grains, and nuts
• fruit

• Other Foods
• fungus

• Foraging Behavior
• stores or caches food

Pre­da­tion

East­ern chip­munks are prey for most di­ur­nal preda­tors in­clud­ing weasels, fe­lids and do­mes­tic dogs and cats. Large rap­tors in­clud­ing red-tailed hawks and goshawks also prey on chip­munks. (Kurta, 1995)

• Known Predators

  • long-tailed weasels (Mustela frenata)
  • red foxes (Vulpes vulpes)
  • ermines (Mustela erminea)
  • lynxes (Lynx canadensis)
  • bobcats (Lynx rufus)
  • coyotes (Canis latrans)
  • domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris)
  • domestic cats (Felis catus)
  • red-tailed hawks (Buteo jamaicensis)
  • goshawks (Accipitridae)
  • owls (Strigiformes)
  • fishers (Martes pennanti)
  • raccoons (Procyon lotor)
  • red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus)

Ecosys­tem Roles

East­ern chip­munks are pri­mar­ily 'larder hoard­ers'. Seeds stored in this way can­not es­tab­lish seedlings and are not ben­e­fi­cial to plant dis­per­sal. How­ever, their oc­ca­sional scat­ter-hoard­ing be­hav­ior can be ben­e­fi­cial in seedling es­tab­lish­ment. They also are im­por­tant to spore dis­per­sal for dif­fer­ent kinds of fungi. Be­cause of their abun­dance, chip­munks are a valu­able prey item for a va­ri­ety of species. (Van­der Wall and Jenk­ins, 2011)

• Ecosystem Impact
• disperses seeds

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

East­ern chip­munks are not sig­nif­i­cantly im­por­tant to the econ­omy. East­ern chip­munks eat in­sects and may be help­ful in con­trol­ling the pop­u­la­tion of some pest species. They are also eas­ily tamed and can make unique pets. (Kurta, 1995; Saun­ders, 1988)

• Positive Impacts
• pet trade
• controls pest population

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

Some Sci­urids cause de­struc­tion to crops in gar­dens, fields and in food stor­age areas. East­ern chip­munks are not noted for caus­ing this type of dam­age. (Smith, 2005)

• Negative Impacts
• crop pest

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

East­ern chip­munks are listed as a species of Least Con­cern ac­cord­ing to the IUCN Red List.

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

• State of Michigan List

  No special status

Con­trib­u­tors

Michelle Kroll (au­thor), Michi­gan Tech­no­log­i­cal Uni­ver­sity, Joseph Bump (ed­i­tor), Michi­gan Tech­no­log­i­cal Uni­ver­sity, Leila Si­cil­iano Mar­tina (ed­i­tor), An­i­mal Di­ver­sity Web Staff.

Ref­er­ences

2001. "How the Chip­munk Got His Stripes" (On-line). Canku Ota. Ac­cessed No­vem­ber 11, 2012 at http://​www.​turtletrack.​org/​Issues01/​Co01132001/​CO_​01132001_​Chipmunkstripes.​htm.

Baack, J., P. Switzer. 2000. Alarm Calls Af­fect For­ag­ing Be­hav­ior in East­ern Chip­munks (Tamias stria­tus, Ro­den­tia: Sci­uri­dae). Ethol­ogy, 106: 1057–1066.

Da Silva, K., C. Mahan, J. Da Silva. 2002. The Trill of the Chase: East­ern Chip­munks Call to Warn Kin. Jour­nal of Mam­mal­ogy, May 2002, Vol. 83, No. 2: 546-552.

Kurta, . 1995. Mam­mals of the Great Lakes Re­gion. Ann Arbor, MI: Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan Press.

Linzey, A. 2008. "Tamias stria­tus. IUCN 2012" (On-line). IUCN Red List of Threat­ened Species. Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 31, 2012 at www.​iucnredlist.​org.

Pen­ner, J., L. De­ven­port. 2011. A com­par­a­tive study of caching and pil­fer­ing be­hav­ior in two sym­patric species, least chip­munks (Tamias min­imus) and east­ern chip­munks (Tamias stria­tus). Jour­nal of Com­par­a­tive Psy­chol­ogy, 125(4): 375-384.

Saun­ders, D. 1988. Adironack An­i­mals. New York: Adiron­dack Wildlife Pro­gram, State Uni­ver­sity of New York, Col­lege of En­vi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence and Forestry, 1988.

Smith, J. 2005. "Small Mam­mals and Agri­cul­ture: A Study of Ef­fects and Re­sponses" (On-line). Ac­cessed Oc­to­ber 25, 2012 at http://​www.​stolaf.​edu/​depts/​environmental-studies/​courses/​es-399%20home/​es-399-05/​Projects/​Jared's%20Se­nior%20Sem­i­nar%20Re­search%20­Page/.

Sny­der, D. 1982. Tamias stria­tus. Mam­malian Species, 168: 1-8.

Van­der Wall, S., S. Jenk­ins. 2011. Plant-an­i­mal in­ter­ac­tions and cli­mate: Why do yel­low pine chip­munks (Tamias amoenus) and east­ern chip­munks (Tamias stria­tus) have such dif­fer­ent ef­fects on plants?. Eco­science, 18(2): 130-137.