Black-lipped Pika

Fascinating facts about the Black-lipped Pika

• At 150–200 grams, the black-lipped pika weighs less than a smartphone—yet it lives higher than any other mammal except yaks, making its home on the Tibetan Plateau at elevations above 4,000 metres where oxygen levels are half that of sea level. Their blood contains a unique haemoglobin variant that absorbs oxygen more efficiently than ours, allowing them to thrive where most mammals would suffocate.
• A single pika harvests and stacks up to 60 kilograms of dried grass each summer—the size of a human adult—in hidden 'haystacks' buried beneath rocks. They must work frantically during the brief alpine growing season, because winter lasts nine months and no grass grows. If their cache runs out, they starve within weeks.
• The black-lipped pika's alarm call is so loud it can be heard from 500 metres away across bare mountain slopes, yet the animal itself is invisible from 10 metres away. They've evolved a piercing 'eee-ow!' that travels farther than their tiny body should allow, giving the whole colony crucial seconds to dive into rocky crevices before a snow leopard arrives.
• Climate change has shifted the pika's entire world upslope by 300 metres in just 20 years as the Plateau warms faster than almost anywhere on Earth. They cannot climb higher—the mountains run out—so populations are being squeezed into smaller and smaller zones at the summits, trapped between rising heat below and rock above.
• Pikas are monogamous and stay with the same partner for life, unusually faithful among rodents. Paired males actively guard their mates and territories, and both parents raise litters together across the long alpine summer. This bond is so strong that losing a partner can leave a pika unable to survive the next winter alone.

At a glance

About the Black-lipped Pika

In the lofty, windswept realms of the Himalayas, the black-lipped pika embarks on its daily quest for sustenance, its tiny paws barely making a whisper as it darts between the rocky outcrops and scrubby vegetation. With an air of quiet determination, this diminutive creature navigates the harsh, high-altitude landscape, its thick fur fluffed against the biting winds as it gathers grasses and wildflowers to store in its hidden caches. As the sun begins to set, casting a golden glow over the mountainous terrain, the black-lipped pika retreats to the safety of its burrow, its large ears twitching with a perpetual alertness to the world around it.

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