Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Lagomorpha > Ochotonidae > Ochotona > Ochotona princeps

Ochotona princeps (pika; American Pika)

Synonyms: Lepus princeps (homotypic)

Wikipedia Abstract

The American pika (Ochotona princeps), a diurnal species of pika, is found in the mountains of western North America, usually in boulder fields at or above the tree line. They are herbivorous, smaller relatives of rabbits and hares.
View Wikipedia Record: Ochotona princeps

Infraspecies

Ochotona princeps fenisex
Ochotona princeps princeps
Ochotona princeps saxatilis
Ochotona princeps schisticeps
Ochotona princeps uinta

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
4
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
25
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 9.93
EDGE Score: 2.39
Learn more at EDGE of Existence programme

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  100 grams
Birth Weight [1]  9 grams
Diet [2]  Herbivore
Diet - Plants [2]  100 %
Forages - Ground [2]  100 %
Female Maturity [1]  11 months 17 days
Gestation [1]  30 days
Litter Size [1]  3
Litters / Year [1]  2
Maximum Longevity [1]  7 years
Snout to Vent Length [3]  7 inches (19 cm)
Weaning [1]  28 days

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Name Location Endemic Species Website
California Floristic Province Mexico, United States No

Habitat Vegetation Classification

Name Location  Website 
North Pacific Alpine-Subalpine Bedrock & Scree United States (Washington); Canada (British Columbia)
North Pacific Alpine-Subalpine Dwarf-shrubland & Heath Canada; United States (Oregon, Idaho, Washington, California)
North Pacific Alpine-Subalpine Tundra United States (Washington, Alaska, Oregon, California); Canada (British Columbia)
Rocky Mountain & Sierran Alpine Bedrock & Scree Canada (British Columbia, Alberta); United States (California, Arizona, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington, Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado)
Rocky Mountain-Sierran Alpine Dwarf-shrubland & Krummholz Canada (Alberta); United States (Washington, Nevada, Utah, Montana, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, California)
Rocky Mountain-Sierran Alpine Turf & Fell-field Canada (Alberta); United States (Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Washington, Utah)

Prey / Diet

Prey / Diet Overlap

Predators

Martes americana (American Marten)[5]
Mustela erminea (Ermine)[5]
Mustela frenata (Long-tailed Weasel)[6]
Ursus arctos (Grizzly Bear)[7]

Consumers

Range Map

External References

NatureServe Explorer

Audio

Play / PauseVolume
Provided by Center for Biological Diversity via Myxer Author: Chris Ray

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 2Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
♦ 3Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 4Disparate determinants of summer and winter diet selection of a general herbivore, Ochotona princeps, M. Denise Dearing, Oecologia (1996) 108:467-478
♦ 5Responses of pikas (Ochotona princeps, Lagomorpha) to naturally occurring terrestrial predators, Barbara L. Ivins and Andrew T. Smith, Behav Ecol Sociobiol (1983) 13:277-285
♦ 6Mustela frenata, Steven R. Sheffield and Howard H. Thomas, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 570, pp. 1-9 (1997)
♦ 7Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 8International Flea Database
♦ 9Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Audio software provided by SoundManager 2
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0