Siberian chipmunk
Eutamias sibiricus
— Where the name comes from
Eutamias is the “good steward”, from eu- and tamías, the Greek household manager who guarded the stores. The name says everything this animal does: it gathers, carries in its cheeks and hoards. It is the only chipmunk that lives outside the Americas, and its presence in Eurasia is a relic of when the two continents were joined by Beringia.
— Facts
- Group
- Mammals · Mammalia
- Order
- Rodents
- Habitat
- Coniferous and mixed forest, taiga, understorey with fallen trunks
- Range
- From north-eastern European Russia across Siberia, China, Korea and Hokkaidō
- Size
- 18–25 cm including tail, 50–120 g
- Diet
- Conifer seeds, acorns, berries, fungi, insects
- Lifespan
- 10 years in captivity
— Characteristics
- 01
Its cheek pouches let it carry up to nine grams of seed per trip.
- 02
It hoards kilos of supplies in its burrow and wakes several times in winter to eat them.
- 03
The western European populations derive from animals that escaped from pet shops.
— What sets it apart
In Belgium, France and northern Italy it now lives at liberty, and it arrived from cages and vivaria: it was the fashionable pet rodent of the 1970s and 1980s, and whoever tired of it let it go in the park. In the Forest of Soignes, on the edge of Brussels, the population descends from a few dozen released animals and today numbers thousands. Escapes from homes have become a documented route of invasion, and for that reason the species is now banned from trade in the European Union.
