Identification
- Prairie dogs are small, burrowing rodents with short tails and stocky bodies.
- They have brown fur and are usually between 12-16 inches long.
- They have sharp claws for digging and chisel-like teeth for gnawing.
Habitat
- Prairie dogs are found in grassland habitats throughout North America, from Mexico to Canada.
- They prefer areas with short grasses and open spaces, where they can spot predators easily.
Nesting
- Prairie dogs live in elaborate burrow systems that can span several acres. Because they live in areas prone to environmental threats, including hailstorms, blizzards, and floods, as well as drought and prairie fires, burrows provide important protection. They also help them regulate their temperatures vs what the outside air might be in their environment.
- They dig tunnels and chambers, which they use for sleeping, breeding, and storing food. They are roughly 16-33 feet long and 6-10 feet below the surface.
- They also create mounds around the entrances to their burrows, which provide a vantage point for spotting predators. Some burrows will have up to 6 different entrances.
Behavior
- Prairie dogs are social animals and live in large communities called “towns.” Towns may contain 15-26 family groups. A basic family group consists of an adult breeding male, 2-3 adult females, 1-2 male offspring and 1-2 female offspring.
- They communicate with each other through a series of barks and chirps. It has been said they have one of the most complex systems of communications and social structures in the animal kingdom.
- They are active during the day and spend most of their time foraging for food.
Offspring
- Prairie dogs breed once a year, usually in early spring.
- Females give birth to litters of 3-8 pups after a gestation period of about 30 days.
- The young are born blind and hairless and are cared for by their mother until they are weaned at around 6-8 weeks old.
Predators
- Prairie dogs have many predators, including coyotes, eagles, hawks, and badgers.
- They use their intricate burrow systems to escape from predators, but many are still caught and eaten.
Diet
- Prairie dogs are herbivores and mainly eat grasses, roots, and seeds.
- They are known for their ability to consume a wide variety of plant species.
- They also occasionally eat insects.
Fun Facts
- Prairie dogs are considered a keystone species because they play an important role in maintaining the grassland ecosystem. Also because many species often use their mounds.
- They have been known to “kiss” each other, a behavior that involves touching their front teeth together.
- Prairie dogs are fighters and pretty tough. The sharp teeth and claws are formidable against predators.
- Their entire mating season is one hour long.
- Back to their communication, recent research has found that those calls can convey incredibly descriptive details. Prairie dogs can alert one another, for example, that there’s not just a human approaching their burrows, but a tall human wearing the color red. So it’s not your imagination, they are talking about you.
- They inhabit about 5% of the land they used to, and are threatened not just by human expansion, but by the Black Plague.