50 Fun Facts About Chipmunks

Disney's cartoon chipmunks Chip and Dale take their names from a pun on a famous maker of what?

Furniture is the joke: animator Bill Justice first drew the pair, who were named after the furniture designer Thomas Chippendale.

All but one species of chipmunk are native to North America; the odd one out comes from which continent?

Asia is home to the Siberian chipmunk, found from Russia across China to northern Japan. It is the only one of the 25 species found outside North America.

When a chipmunk's cheek pouches are stuffed full, they can swell to nearly the size of which body part?

Its head is the measure: the pouches sit between jaw and cheek and work like shopping bags, hauling seeds and nuts back to the burrow.

The singing brothers of Alvin and the Chipmunks were named after executives at which kind of company?

A record label supplied the names: creator Ross Bagdasarian borrowed them from his bosses at Liberty, the company that released the trio's first hit.

In the Chipmunks' chart-topping Christmas song of 1958, Alvin keeps wishing for which toy craze of that year?

A hula hoop was 1958's hot new toy, so Alvin's wish dated the tune at once. The single still spent four weeks at number one.

Disney's Chip and Dale made their 1943 debut squabbling with which character over stashing nuts in a cannon?

Pluto met the pair in the short Private Pluto, set on a military base, where the two chipmunks only squeaked and chattered without words.

Chipmunks do not fatten up for winter the way bears do; how do they get through the cold months instead?

Eating stored food is the plan: a chipmunk wakes every so often to snack from the nuts and seeds it hoarded in its burrow during autumn.

Chipmunks now live wild in parks in France and Italy, mostly after being imported in the 1960s as what?

Household pets is the answer: more than 200,000 chipmunks were shipped to Europe between 1960 and 1980, and escaped or unwanted animals founded wild colonies.

Chipmunks are best known for hoarding seeds and nuts, but which feeding group do they belong to?

Omnivores eat both plants and animals, and chipmunks will even take eggs and newly hatched chicks from nests when they get the chance.

The golden-mantled ground squirrel looks much like a chipmunk but lacks the stripes a chipmunk has on which body part?

Its face gives it away: a chipmunk has dark and light stripes running past its eyes, while the bigger golden-mantled ground squirrel has none there.

Chipmunks belong to which order of mammals, named for gnawing front teeth that never stop growing?

Rodents get their name from the Latin for gnawing, and a chipmunk must keep chewing to wear down incisors that would otherwise just keep lengthening.

Born blind and hairless in an underground nest, a baby chipmunk is known by which name?

A pup is the usual word, and it grows fast: young chipmunks first venture out of the burrow at about six weeks old.

Outside the mating season, an adult eastern chipmunk defending its burrow prefers to live in which way?

On its own is the rule: eastern chipmunks meet only to court and mate, a solitary streak one scientist ranked among their most characteristic traits.

In Alvin and the Chipmunks, the three brothers are raised by a long-suffering songwriter with which first name?

Dave is the adoptive father, manager and caretaker of the trio, a kindly man who is forever losing his patience with their mischief.

In which 1989 Disney television series do Chip and Dale run a detective agency with two mice and a fly?

Rescue Rangers recast the troublemaking pair as crime fighters, joined by an inventor mouse, a burly Australian mouse and a tiny green fly.

Chipmunks help forests by digging up and spreading the spores of which prized fungi that fruit underground?

Truffles cannot scatter spores on the wind, so they depend on animals such as chipmunks to dig them up, eat them and carry the spores elsewhere.

The word chipmunk probably comes from a word in which Native American language of the Great Lakes region?

Ojibwe has the word ajidamoo for a squirrel, and early English spellings such as chitmunk show how the borrowed sound drifted.

In the 1830s chipmunks were known as chip squirrels, a name that probably referred to what about them?

Their call is a sharp, repeated chip, one of five sounds in the eastern chipmunk's repertoire along with chucks, trills, squeals and chatter.

Palmer's chipmunk lives only in the Spring Mountains, where its forest is shrinking as which desert city sprawls?

Las Vegas spreads out beside the Spring Mountains, the only home of this endangered chipmunk, which keeps to cool forest above 7,000 feet.

The alpine chipmunk lives only in the high country of which California mountain range, from Yosemite southward?

Sierra Nevada peaks are its whole world: the alpine chipmunk rarely strays below 8,200 feet and escapes summer heat deep in boulder crevices.

Chipmunks belong to a tribe of the squirrel family named after which far heavier burrowing cousins?

Marmots give the tribe Marmotini its name, and the heaviest can top 8 kg, while most chipmunks weigh well under 150 grams.

The eastern chipmunk's genus name Tamias, a nod to its hoarding habit, is Greek for which kind of worker?

A steward, treasurer or housekeeper is what the Greek tamias means, so the full name Tamias striatus works out as the striped steward.

The big food hoard a chipmunk piles up in one burrow chamber is known by the name of which old-fashioned room?

A larder is one big stockpile kept in a single place, the opposite of scatter hoarding, where an animal hides each item in a different spot.

Least chipmunks mark a patch they have stripped of seeds, then never return; what do they mark it with?

Urine acts as a 'nothing left here' sign, sparing these busy foragers a wasted trip to a spot they have already cleaned out.

The least chipmunk, the most widespread in North America, owes its name to which distinction among chipmunks?

Smallest it is: an adult can weigh as little as 25 grams, under one ounce, yet the species ranges from Yukon across to Michigan.

Buller's chipmunk and the Durango chipmunk are both found in the wild in only which country?

Mexico marks the southern limit of chipmunk country, and these two mountain species live nowhere else on Earth.

The agile cliff chipmunk is often spotted scaling the rock walls of which famous Arizona landmark?

Grand Canyon cliffs are a favourite haunt of this sure-footed climber, which lives on juniper berries, pine seeds and acorns.

Chipmunks creator Ross Bagdasarian took his stage surname from which Spanish city where he was once stationed?

Seville charmed him while he was posted there, so he borrowed the city's name for the persona behind his novelty hits.

In Disney's 1989 detective cartoon, Chip's fedora and leather jacket came from a character modelled on which film hero?

Indiana Jones inspired Kit Colby, a mouse hero dropped from the first draft; his outfit went to Chip, while Dale got a loud Hawaiian shirt.

A chipmunk's shrill, repeated alarm chirp is easily mistaken for the voice of which other kind of animal?

A bird is what most listeners assume, yet the chirp is a chipmunk warning of a threat, and females are thought to use it to attract mates too.

National Geographic researchers in Quebec fitted wild chipmunks with which tiny devices in 2013 and 2014?

Microphones small enough for a chipmunk to wear let Charline Couchoux's team build a guide to the noises the animals make.

Chipmunks are among the small mammals that harbour which illness named after a Connecticut town?

Lyme disease bacteria live on in chipmunks and white-footed mice, and ticks that feed on them can later pass the infection to people.

An eastern chipmunk's burrow entrance is hard to find because the animal leaves no what beside the hole?

Dug-out soil is spread around the surroundings or used to plug an old doorway, so the two-inch hole has no telltale mound.

Rather than truly hibernating, least chipmunks spend long winter stretches in which low-energy state?

Torpor is a state of reduced body activity, and how much of the winter a least chipmunk spends below ground depends on how far north it lives.

John James Audubon captioned his chipmunk lithograph the chipping squirrel, or by which other old name?

Hackee appears in Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, the mammal book Audubon produced with his sons in the mid-19th century.

The yellow-cheeked chipmunk of California's northern coast is also named after which giant tree?

Redwood chipmunk is its other name; it lives in a humid coastal strip of conifer forest that is nowhere wider than about 25 miles.

Which famous naturalist filed the eastern chipmunk under the name Sciurus striatus, beside the tree squirrels?

Carl Linnaeus chose a name meaning striped squirrel; in 1811 Johann Illiger moved the animal into a genus of its own.

Wild chipmunks in the Dutch city of Tilburg descend from animals left behind underground when what closed down?

A zoo in Tilburg shut and moved its animals away, but many chipmunks were overlooked in their burrows and simply stayed put.

Palmer's chipmunk survives on isolated forested peaks ringed by hostile lowlands, a habitat given which poetic name?

Sky islands work like real ones: the hot lowlands around them are as hard to cross as open sea, so the animals on top stay cut off.

Which popular small pet stuffs seeds into stretchy cheek pouches just as a wild chipmunk does?

Hamster pouches run from the mouth to the front of the shoulders, and some mothers even hide their young inside to carry them away from danger.

Director Jack Hannah turned Chip and Dale into the regular screen rivals of which Disney star from 1947?

Donald Duck proved the perfect victim; for these cartoons Hannah also gave the two chipmunks words to speak and separate personalities.

Disney's Chip and Dale and the singing Chipmunks all owe their squeaky voices to which studio trick?

Sped-up playback did it both times: Disney quickened clips of normal speech, and Bagdasarian sang slowly, then ran the reel at normal pace.

The Oxford English Dictionary's earliest chipmunk spelling, from 1842, ended in which real English word instead of munk?

Monk was the ending: the dictionary's first citation spells the animal chipmonk, and other early writers tried chipmuck and chipminck.

In summer, least chipmunks sometimes move into tree hollows first carved out by which animals?

Woodpeckers leave behind ready-made holes, and least chipmunks will also weave their own summer nests in trees from leaves and grass.

The Chipettes, the cartoon girl group introduced in 1983, are Jeanette, Eleanor and which third member?

Brittany was the first Chipette that Janice Karman created, in 1982, a year before the trio joined the Chipmunks' television cartoon.

Before the Chipmunks, Ross Bagdasarian tried his high-pitched voice trick on which 1958 number-one novelty hit?

Witch Doctor held number one for three weeks and saved the Liberty company from near-bankruptcy, months before the chipmunk trio existed.

Twenty-three chipmunk species share a single genus, Neotamias, found mostly in which part of North America?

The West is chipmunk central: three different species can be found in the Colorado Front Range alone.

Eastern chipmunks chip and chuck at predators they spot, but save their short trill for which moment?

Being chased triggers the trill, and researchers think its main job is to warn relatives living in nearby burrows that a hunter is close.

In the 1952 Disney short Two Chips and a Miss, Chip and Dale compete for the attention of which female chipmunk?

Clarice seems to love them both equally and ends the cartoon by giving each of them a kiss.

Three Chip and Dale cartoons of the late 1940s were each nominated for which major film award?

An Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short came three times in four years, for Squatter's Rights, Chip an' Dale and Toy Tinkers.