Answers To Go with Susan Smith

Q: We travel a good bit. On our last trip to the Midwest we hiked in a park and saw a lot of very entertaining chipmunks. I know I’ve also seen them in western states, but I don’t believe I have ever seen them in our area. Are there chipmunks in Texas?

A: I began looking for local chipmunks by checking the index of Mark Gustafson’s “A Naturalist’s Guide to the Texas Hill Country.” There was no entry for chipmunks.

I looked in the index for squirrels to be sure the author included small mammals. Gustafson identifies the squirrels we see most often in San Marcos and throughout the Hill Country as eastern fox squirrels.

There is also an entry for the Rio Grande ground squirrel. The accompanying photograph shows an animal that strongly resembles a chipmunk. However a chipmunk has stripes on its head, but Rio Grande ground squirrels don’t. They do have rows of white spots along their back.

These ground squirrels create tunnels within the soil in grassy Hill Country areas, especially overgrazed pastures and mowed areas. They feed on vegetation but will also eat insects and dead mammals. They hibernate during the winter.

Let’s return to chipmunks and broaden our search to the entire state. “The Mammals of Texas” by William B. Davis does include a chipmunk listing, but this family will have a long drive to the chipmunk’s native region in West Texas. The gray-footed chipmunk is found in the Sierra Diablo and Guadalupe Mountains in the Trans-Pecos region.

The chipmunk’s favorite haunts are downed logs at the edge of clearings. They are also found in dense stands of mixed timber (oaks, pines, firs) and on brushy hillsides, particularly where crevices in rocks offer cover. When alarmed, chipmunks run for crevices or burrows; occasionally they take to the trees.