Collared Pika

Fascinating facts about the Collared Pika

• A collared pika's territory spans roughly a 30 m (98 ft) circle, and its food caches sit 30-70 m apart, yet it rarely travels more than 10 m from its rock shelter to gather plants. During July and August it makes thousands of short trips, stacking vegetation into "haypiles" that will sustain it through the snow-bound winter.
• Fossils unearthed in 1973 from Pleistocene deposits in central Alaska, along with dung pellets, show that collared pikas once roamed a broader landscape. Their skeletal traits shifted during the Wisconsin glaciation, likely splitting them from the American pika into a distinct species.
• Today, collared pikas number only 6.4-7.2 individuals per hectare, with densities as low as 1-4 per hectare in parts of the Yukon. Since 1995 their numbers have been falling, and scientists warn of a 10-15-year window before local extirpation becomes likely. Their status as a cold-adapted, alpine indicator species means their decline signals broader climate threats to mountain ecosystems.
• Weighing just 130-200 g and measuring 17.8-19.8 cm long, the collared pika hauls enough food for winter. Its tiny body lets it dart across rocky talus while staying hidden in crevices. It survives the frigid, snow-covered months without hibernating.
• Females carry their pups for about 30 days, then nurse the blind, hairless young for another 30 days before they leave the nest. By 40-50 days the juveniles have grown to adult size and disperse within a few days to claim their own talus patch.

Sources

Every fact above was checked against these pages, and kept only where one of them states it.

• Wikipedia

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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