Colorado chipmunk

The Colorado chipmunk, Neotamias quadrivittatus, is a chipmunk in the squirrel family Sciuridae that is endemic to Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico in the United States. It is the largest of the three chipmunk species found along the Colorado Front Range, alongside the least chipmunk and the Uinta chipmunk, and weighs about 62 grams on average. Like other chipmunks it has a stripe running under the eye, which separates it from the ground squirrels. It lives mainly in coniferous forests of the Southern Rocky Mountains, in open woodland between about 1,500 and 2,100 metres in northeastern Colorado and up to 3,200 metres further south where the Uinta chipmunk is absent. It eats seeds, berries, flowers and insects and survives the winter on underground food caches. Three subspecies are recognised.