By Phineas the Pika with Help From Ryan the Human

Food: flowers and grassPlace: Hot RockTime of the Year: Summer (Sunbathing)

Phineas the Pika2202 West Royle’s RockslideAlpine Life Zone, CO 80121Age: 5

©December 2, 2010 Phineas and Ryan Bennett. No parts of this essay may be copied without permission. From Ryan or Phineas. If you copied you will receive 222, 000,000 signatures from Mrs. Jones.

Did you know that pikas don’t hibernate? They stay active all winter. I’m excited to enlighten you about a pikas fascinating family life, amazing protection, brilliant habitat, delicious food, and unusual description.

I’m always on the lookout, even while I sunbathe!

Once a pika is full grown he/she must find their own feeding grounds.

Us pikas aren’t very massive, we’re actually the exact opposite. When I was born I measured about 6 inches long, but now I’m 12 inches long. I can survive 4-7 years, and I weigh only 14 ounces (I used to only weigh 4 ounces)! I don’t like admitting this, but pika males are exactly the same size as female pikas. My ears are short and round, and my fur is ash gray. Since I’m a collard pika, and I also have a stripe of white fur around my neck. A pika isn’t the only name for me. I could be known as a mouse hare, a piping hare, a whistling hare, or little chief hare by the Chipewyan people (I know, a lot of hares). Other names that don’t involve “hare” in it for a me is a Coney, and a Rock Rabbit. Even though my thick fur coat keeps me from freezing in the winter, my coat also camouflages with the rocks I reside in. Every June I molt, the coat underneath my fluffy and shaggy winter coat is a thinner coat for the hot summer. Two weeks after I molt my new thinner and smoother coat will become complete.

Unlike bears I stay active all winter. I dig tunnels through the snow to my food.

Pikas, like me, have tails that are so diminutive that most humans believe that we’re tailless.

Even though my thick fur coat keeps me from freezing in the winter, my coat also camouflages with the rocks I reside in.

I may appear adorable and cuddly to humans, but that doesn’t stop any of my predators.. I have a wonderful protection, mostly because animal in Colorado that’s a carnivore wants to devour me. My most dangerous predators are Great Horned Owls, and weasels. A Great Horned Owls can fly almost silently through the air, making it hard for me to spot them, even though somehow I always do. If I’m alert and observant, and I glance up and see a predator, like an Owl, I will squeak a warning to the other pikas living in the area, and once they here the warning they will scurry into there home. But if I don’t glance up then the Owl will dive, snatch up a pika (or me), and triumphantly bring him/her to its nest for a juicy snack. Even though a owl is dangerous, the animal that is even more dangerous than that is a weasel. They are narrow enough that they can fit into my home and catch me in my own home (they’re not very courteous, are they)! Pikas don’t own any special adaptations to protect ourselves, but, what we do have is a reliable and trustworthy security system. If one pika locates a predator than he/she will warn everybody else about the predator.

Weasels and Owls aren’t the only predators on the lookout for a pika, other predators are foxes, minks, bears and wolves.

Pikas don’t own any special adaptations to protect ourselves, but, what we do have is a reliable and trustworthy security system. If one pika locates a predator than he/she will warn everybody else about the predator.

My favorite foods are delicious flowers and grass (which I savor) but sometimes I might consume my own droppings (I know, it sounds putrid, but my dung is actually rich in vitamins)! I’m a herbivore which means I only munch on plants. In the spring and early summer I will sprint many trips from my home to my feeding grounds to stock up on food again. Some adult pikas travel with children, other (like me since I’m a male, and females are the ones who take care of the babies) go alone. It tastes better to me to devour fresh food than the stale hay I have to consume in the winter. I take only a couple of minutes to avoid any lingering predators (I’m really terrified of being eaten). Almost no plants grow in the winter, so I make a haystack for the winter. When I harvest the hay I will use my mouth to pull plants out of the ground. Just like a beaver, my teeth never stop growing.

Sometimes the bunch of plants that I pull out of the ground is as big as me! Even though I’m a herbivore, I

don’t eat all plants, only soft ones, like flowers and grasses.

Yum!

My habitat is full of rocks, rocks, and more rocks! I reside in tunnels under rockslides. The tunnels are far underground so that it’s harder for my predators to catch me underground. My trail from my house to my feeding ground can sometimes grow to 66 feet long! When making a haystack (pile of dried grass) I will dash along my trail to my feeding grounds many times a day to grab food for my haystack. The hard working pikas (like me can add one inch of hay to my haystack each day. Most of the time I will place the haystack right outside my home so I don’t have to travel far to much on food in the winter.

When I make my haystack for the winter it can reach up to 24 inches tall, and 36 inches wide! That might not sound like a lot to you, but that’s colossal to us pikas.

Even though you might not think so, my relatives are hares and rabbits. I have a elated family that is full with mating and babies. Unlike bears, I don’t hibernate, instead, I will stay active all winter. I dig a tunnel from my den to my haystack when the snow covers the ground. Near the end of winter, I may run out of food, If I do, I will start living off the lichens living off the rocks. You may believe that since I’m trapped under frosty snow in the winter, that I might suffocate (which would be a catastrophe) but, there are tiny little air pockets in the snow that allows me to breath. In early spring I’m very cautious, it has been safe all winter long, but now I need to adjust to life of predators. Also, now I have to search for a mate (I know, it makes me horrified just thinking about it). This might sound weird to you, (literally if you’re hiking in the mountains) but I sing to attract a mate. Once I mate, the first babies will be born approximately 30 days after I mated. Once those babies are born, I will mate again, while the female that I mated before looked after the newborns. The second series of babies will be born in the summer. The pregnant mother may have between two and six babies; the newborns lack fur when they are born. When the babies are first born they aren’t very exuberant, but in about a week their senses start to work, their eyes and ears open for the first time (they look ridiculous to me). Only 50 days after born the newborns will become adults. As the babies grow their mother stops little by little watching over them; instead of watching, she will venture out of the den to have some peacefulness, away from the jittery and jumpy newborns. Life is tough for baby pikas, some die of cold and others are eaten by predators. Those who survive all of those hardships are chased out off their den by their mother when they become adults. They are forced to discover their own feeding grounds, a new home, and start to gather food for the upcoming winter.

Do you see the pika in this picture? Its camouflaged coat keeps it so well hidden that most predators wouldn’t notice it.

Pikas love to sunbathe, which is perfect because we live right under rocks that are perfect for just that thing!

Pikas survive 4-7 years, possess a built in security system, reside underneath rockslides, consume plants, and sing to attract a mate. This makes pikas an outstanding Colorado animal. Pikas are a truly amazing animal, their habitat is destroyed in some places, but somehow they just won’t accept extinction.

If you see me don’t pick up and bring me home. I always become sick and die within a few weeks. Just take a picture and leave.

Help pikas so pikas don’t become extinct.

Nickles, Greg. Pikas, Danbury, CT: Grolier, 2001.

Miller, Sara S. Rabbits, Pikas, and Hares. Franklin Watts, 2002.

http://thisiskat.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/collared_pika_medium.jpg

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http://www.nps.gov/archive/grsa/resources/images/photos/pika01.jpg

http://www.treehugger.com/20090420-american-pika.jpg

http://depts.washington.edu/natmap/photos/mammals/pika_5946np.jpg

http://www.cpaws-southernalberta.org/events/pics/coffey-pika-large.jpg

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http://ih1.redbubble.net/work.488800.3.flat,220x200,075,t.jpghttp://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/files/storyphotos/Pika_Habitat.jpg?0

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Image LocationsImage Locations

WebliographiesWebliographiesAll about pikas at Pika Works. n.d. Web. 23 Oct. 2010.