Alpine Pika

Fascinating facts about the Alpine Pika

• A pika's metabolic rate is so high it must eat almost constantly during daylight hours — spending up to 60% of its waking time foraging. In summer, an Alpine pika will stuff its burrow with up to 60 kg of dried grass, a survival strategy called 'haying' that works like a living pantry for the 8-month winter. If the hay pile rots or molds, the pika starves.
• Alpine pikas live higher than almost any mammal on Earth — some populations survive above 4,600 metres in the Himalayas and Tibetan plateau, where oxygen levels are half what they are at sea level. Their blood carries more oxygen per cell than lowland relatives, and their tiny lungs work overtime. They are altitude athletes born into the sky.
• A pika weighs roughly 150 grams — about as much as a deck of playing cards — but its call is a piercing, territorial shriek that carries across rocky valleys for hundreds of metres. This is a creature that shouts as loud as much larger animals, broadcasting its claim on a boulder-scattered home range of just 0.5 hectares with the confidence of something ten times its size.
• Climate change is forcing Alpine pikas upslope faster than any other mammal studied. Between 1997 and 2012, pikas in the Great Basin moved 300 metres higher in elevation per decade, racing toward the mountain peak. Once they reach the summit, there is nowhere left to go — making them a harbinger of how quickly warming is reshaping life in the sky.
• An Alpine pika produces a specific alarm call for each predator type — one whistle for golden eagles overhead, a different one for foxes or stoats on the ground below. Other pikas hearing these calls adjust their behaviour accordingly, taking shelter or scanning the right patch of sky. Their tiny brain cracks a complex vocal code that separates species-specific threats in real time.

At a glance

About the Alpine Pika

In the lofty, rocky outcrops of the mountain ranges, the Alpine Pika embodies a spirit of industrious solitude, its gentle eyes watchful as it busies itself collecting and drying plant material for the harsh winter ahead. With nimble ease, it navigates the treacherous terrain, its stout legs and sharp claws allowing it to dart between boulders with a quiet confidence that belies the unforgiving environment it calls home. As it moves, the pika's soft, woolly coat blends seamlessly into the surrounding landscape, a testament to the remarkable adaptability of this small, yet resilient, creature.

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