cliff chipmunk (Mammals of Chiricahua NM)

cliff chipmunk

Tamias dorsalis

Summary ⁷

The cliff chipmunk (Tamias dorsalis) is a small, bushy-tailed squirrel that typically lives along cliff walls or boulder fields bordering Pinyon-juniper woodlands in the Western United States and Mexico. Cliff chipmunks are very agile, and can often be seen scaling steep cliff walls. Cliff chipmunks do not amass body fat as the more common ground squirrel does. They create a "stash" of food which they frequent during the cold winter months.

Description ⁸

Cliff chipmunk fossils about 2,300 and 8,000 years old have been found in caves in Utah and Nevada. The chipmunks still live in those states, in habitats where sagebrush, fourwing saltbush, chokecherry, wild rose, and cliffrose grow. In other parts of their range, they are found with a wide variety of plants, and their diets include seeds and fruits from many kinds of grasses, shrubs, forbs, and trees. They also feed on insects, frogs, salamanders, snakes, birds, and eggs. Four other chipmunk species share parts of their range. Where one or more other species occurs on a mountain, the cliff chipmunk usually is found at the lowest elevation, but where none of the others occurs, cliff chipmunks range right to the top of the mountain.

Links:
Mammal Species of the World
Click here for The American Society of Mammalogists species account