The world above timberline with its splendid views and alpine flora also abounds in various attractive high-altitude dwellers. Chubby-cheeked ground squirrels are not the only ones.
May I present myself: I am a pika and look like a furry ball with big ears. I have been described as impossibly cute and won’t raise any objections to that claim. My furry rotundness applies to both body and auditory appendages. Maybe the latter are so substantial because I’m a vocal creature who likes to talk to my fellow pikas, and without being able to hear their responses, it might get kind of lonely up here. When you approach my elevated realm, I call loudly, to let all my buddies know that trouble might follow on your heels. But I hope it won’t, so please behave.
This vocalization of mine reminded people of another furry animal, and they named me whistling hare. By the way, I can make many different sounds. This so impressed listeners that they put together a film with my utterances. If you are so inclined, you might also want to watch a second one, produced by none other than the BBC (though why they call me a bandit is beyond me).
If you think that my looks also resemble a hare’s or rabbit’s, you are correct. Rabbits and hares and I are relatives, belonging to what scientists call the order of lagomorphs (from Greek lagōs, hare + morphē, form). Rabbits and hares are part of the family Leporidae while we pikas make up our own family, Ochotonidae, with 37 different kinds all across the globe. I am an American Pika (Ochotona princeps) and live in the western mountains of the US and the southwestern mountains of Canada. Farther north in North America lies the home of my closest relative, the Collared Pika. All other pikas live on different continents.
What makes all of us lagomorphs special is the fact that we have two rows of incisors in our upper jaw (aka maxilla), one behind the other. Apart from the fact that we are cute. My apologies if I already mentioned this.
With those teeth, we collect our food: Herbs only, please. You might be surprised at the fine grasses and flowers, mosses and lichens that thrive up here in this rarefied air. They smell and taste so sweet, and once I carry them into one of the many crevices where I spend part of my days and all of my nights, my chambers are perfumed with their floral aroma. I have to collect a cache large enough to sustain me through winter, as I do not hibernate. (This hoard is commonly called a haystack.) So, during the summer, I’m usually very busy, running, bounding, and leaping to and fro, ferrying herbaceous sustenance to my rooms.
But even busy pikas need to take a break every once in a while, and when both larder and tummy are full, you might espy me resting on a rock, keeping an eye on things. Looking adorable.
PS: Dear human.
Like many other critters, we suffer from the effects of climate change. We are highly temperature sensitive and once the thermometer climbs above 25 degrees Celsius (77 F), we can’t function. We try to move up the mountain to find cooler places, but sometimes we run out of mountain. Our beautiful environment is also suffering from overuse, fragmentation, pollution, wildfires, and various other challenges. When we don’t feel good, we stop having babies and, in many areas, our numbers have been declining. A world without pikas would be much impoverished. So we want to appeal to you to do everything you can to help us survive.
Please!
And thank you.
