Least chipmunk

The least chipmunk (Neotamias minimus) is the smallest species of chipmunk and the most widespread in North America. It measures about 15.7 to 25 cm in total length and weighs 25 to 66 g, with five dark brown to black stripes on its back separated by four white or cream stripes, and two light and two dark stripes on the face. It is found through much of the western United States and across southern and western Canada from Yukon to central Ontario, reaching the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and neighbouring Wisconsin and Minnesota. Less arboreal than other chipmunks, it favours sagebrush, coniferous woodland and river margins but also uses alpine meadows and the edge of the northern tundra. Active by day, it eats seeds, berries, nuts, fruits and insects, stores food in hidden pits, and does not hibernate but passes the winter in repeated spells of torpor, waking to eat from its caches. Hawks, owls and mustelids prey on it.