The black-tailed prairie dog is a burrowing ground squirrel of the Great Plains that lives in large colonies called towns. It's named for its dog-like alarm barks, and the tip of its tail is black. In the US you can watch them at parks and grasslands such as Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota.
Appearance
- Appearance
- About 14–17 in (36–43 cm) long plus a 3–4 in (8–10 cm) tail, weighing 1.5–3 lb (0.7–1.4 kg). Tan above with a paler belly, a black tail tip, small ears, and long digging claws.
- Voice
- Different threats get different high-pitched barks that alert the whole town, and an 'all clear' call follows once danger passes. In the territorial 'jump-yip,' a prairie dog stretches upward, throws its front feet in the air, and calls.
Look-alikes
Check the tail tip: black on the black-tailed prairie dog, white on the smaller white-tailed. White-tailed prairie dogs also live in meadows with more varied plants and don't clip the vegetation short the way black-tailed ones do.
Why they get mixed upBoth are tan, chunky prairie dogs, and both live in Wyoming and Montana.
Where it lives
- Typical habitats
- shortgrass prairie
- mixed-grass prairie
- desert grassland
- Range
- Great Plains from southern Saskatchewan and Alberta to Chihuahua, Mexico. In the US: Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico. They had vanished from Arizona by 1960, but the state has moved prairie dogs back into Las Cienegas National Conservation Area in the southeast since 2008.
- Preferred conditions
- Prefers gentle slopes with low vegetation about 3–5 in (8–13 cm) tall, often near rivers and creeks. Towns can be seen in places such as Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota.
- Seasons
In the US
Breeding Feb–Apr
Behavior
- Diet
- Mostly grasses, which can make up over 75% of the diet, especially in summer, plus sedges and wildflowers such as scarlet globemallow. In winter they eat plains prickly pear and roots. They get most of their water from plants.
- Activity
- Active by day. They don't truly hibernate; they stay underground in harsh weather and come up to feed on milder winter days.
- Social life
- A town can hold thousands of animals, divided into family groups called : usually one adult male, a few females, and their young. Coterie members greet each other with a 'kiss' or sniff and chase off outsiders.
Life cycle
- Breeding season
- Late February through April, depending on latitude.
- Gestation
- About 34 days
- Litter size
- One litter a year; on average about 3–5 pups are seen above ground
- Time to maturity
- Pups nurse underground for up to about 7 weeks before coming up. Most start breeding at 2 years old.
- Lifespan
- One long-term study found males live up to about 5 years and females about 7 years in the wild.
Conservation
- IUCN Red List
- LCLeast ConcernLow risk of extinction
- Status
- It was a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act until the US Fish and Wildlife Service removed it in August 2004.
- Threats
- Sylvatic plague, spread by fleas, can wipe out a whole colony in days. Poisoning, shooting, and the loss of prairie to farms and development have shrunk their habitat a great deal.
Culture and stories
- Culture and stories
- Lewis and Clark wrote about them in their expedition journals in 1804, where Lewis called them 'barking squirrels.'
- Prairie dogs can bite hard and their fleas can carry plague, and the National Park Service asks visitors not to feed them.
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