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By April Craighead, Wildlife Biologist Craighead Institute
www.craigheadresearch.org
Do you ever wonder who is the cutest and hardest working mammal out there (excluding homo sapiens)? It is the pika, of course, - a power house of energy and industriousness. These pint sized mammals work all summer long to gather and store enough vegetation or “hay” to last them through the very long and harsh winters in alpine and steppe regions all over the world including the United States, Russia, Asia and parts of the Middle East.
This somewhat obscure mammal is becoming very important to researchers and the general public because pikas are also considered to be the “canary in the coal mine” as indicators for environmental change. Pikas can’t stand the heat, literally and will die if exposed to temperatures over 26 o C (80 o F) for more than six hours. To cool off, they utilize the crevices within the talus to stay cool. Unfortunately these environments are beginning to see some of the fastest average temperature increases worldwide due to climate change and pikas are beginning to suffer with population declines reported in the Great Basin of the United States and in China.
Pika Facts Pikas are the smallest member of the rabbit family that also includes rabbits and hares. There are 30 species of pikas throughout the world and they are typically found in two different types of habitats, talus slopes (rock slopes at the base of mountains or cliffs) and steppe- meadow environments. Both of these environments are typically found at high elevations 1,524 m to over 4,000 meters (5,000-14,000+ feet) and the climate can be extremely harsh. Pikas have two different strategies on how they get along with other pikas; some species are mainly solitary and fiercely defend a territory within a talus slope, while others live communally in family groups in steppe-meadow habitat where they dig burrows.
In the United States, the American pika (Ochotona princeps) is our charismatic hard working champion. They range from Alaska down to New Mexico and inhabit a wide variety of habitats. The American pika is territorial and is mainly found in talus or boulder fields but can also be found in lava flows or in human disturbed areas such as mine tailings. Pikas have a distinctive alarm call “eeep” that they use to warn other pikas that predators such as weasels, hawks, owls, coyotes, or people may be near.
The American pika weighs on average a mere 150 grams but it gathers many times its weight in vegetation and make hundreds of foraging trips a day to gather the stores it will need to make it through the winter. These haypiles can measure many meters wide and deep. Unlike other mammals that save energy by hibernating in the winter, pikas remain active all winter long utilizing a series of tunnels under the snow to access their haypiles and potential mates. Pikas eat a variety of vegetation and in some cases plants that are very toxic. How do they manage this? They gather toxic plants and then let them cure in their haypiles to be eaten at a much later date when much of the toxicity has leached out and the plant is more palatable.
Meet The Mighty Pika
Photo: Becca Barkley
KNOWLEDGE
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