Collared Pika

Fascinating facts about the Collared Pika

• A collared pika weighs less than a hamster — roughly 120 to 200 grams — yet survives winters above 2,000 metres where temperatures plunge to −40°C. They don't hibernate. Instead, they spend summer frantically gathering vegetation into haypiles the size of loaves of bread, stashing them in rocky crevices. One pika might collect 60 kilograms of plant material, a 300-fold increase in body weight, all stockpiled before the first snow. It's the mammalian equivalent of running 20 years of grocery shopping in three months.
• Collared pikas are the only mammals in North America that never leave their mountain home — they can't survive below the alpine zone. Trapped by elevation, they've become a living warning system for climate change. Between 1975 and 2012, pikas disappeared from 25% of the peaks where researchers once found them in the Great Basin, retreating upslope as summers warmed. They're running out of mountain.
• Listen to a collared pika and you'll hear a sound like a tiny squeaky toy — a loud, high-pitched alarm call that carries across rocky slopes. They use two distinct calls: one for ground predators like coyotes, another for aerial threats like golden eagles. Other pikas respond immediately, diving into boulder crevices within seconds. This is vocal specificity usually seen only in primates and dolphins, not a creature the size of a golf ball.
• A collared pika's ears are proportionally enormous, covering almost the entire side of its head. Those outsized ears aren't just for hearing — they're cooling vents. Alpine pikas generate serious body heat and overheat easily. On warm days, blood vessels in the ears dilate and release heat like tiny radiators. If summer temperatures spike, they must stay in the shade to avoid fatal overheating, limiting when they can forage and gather food.
• Collared pikas share an unusual survival strategy with pikas across Asia: they pile their own droppings onto haypiles called 'fecal middens'. The dung insulates and fertilises the stored plants, keeping them fresher longer during winter. Scientists have documented that pikas with the largest, best-maintained fecal middens survive harsh winters at higher rates. Pika success isn't just about gathering food — it's about composting it right.

At a glance

About the Collared Pika

In the rugged, rocky outcrops of North America's mountain ranges, the Collared Pika weaves a precarious existence, its diminutive form darting with reckless abandon across treacherous boulder fields. With a soft, high-pitched call, it announces its presence to the thin air, as it busies itself collecting and drying plant material in the fleeting warmth of summer, a vital insurance against the harsh, snowy winters that will soon engulf its alpine home. As it scurries, its grey-brown fur blending seamlessly with the surrounding stones, the Collared Pika embodies a spirit of resilience and adaptability, thriving in one of the most inhospitable yet breathtakingly beautiful landscapes on Earth.

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