Prairie dog
Prairie dogs are herbivorous burrowing rodents native to the grasslands of North America. The five species are: black-tailed, white-tailed, Gunnison’s, Utah, and Mexican prairie dogs. They are a type of ground squirrel, found in the United States, Canada and Mexico. In Mexico, prairie dogs are found primarily in the northern states, which lie at the southern end of the Great Plains: northeastern Sonora, north and northeastern Chihuahua, northern Coahuila, northern Nuevo León, and northern Tamaulipas. In the United States, they range primarily to the west of the Mississippi River, though they have also been introduced in a few eastern locales. Despite the name, they are not actually canines,More info:wiki
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#10 PRAIRIE DOG,More info:nationalgeographic
#9 Prairie dogs reap rewards from being cold-blooded killers,More info:sciencemag
“Eat or be eaten,” some say, is the golden rule of the animal world. But some prairie dogs kill—not for a meal—but to take out the competition. White-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys leucurus) and Wyoming ground squirrels (Urocitellus elegans) eat the same grasses, live in the same prairies, and sometimes even use the same burrows. These close quarters and shared tastes pit the two species directly against each other in competition for food. Over 6 years of studying the prairie dogs in Colorado, researchers saw them chase and kill ground squirrels more than 100 times, according to a study published online today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Other than a bit of chewing, in most of these instances the prairie dog simply walked away afterward, leaving the whole carcass as food for scavengers. The more squirrel murders these mostly female prairie dogs committed, the more offspring they were able to raise. And serial killers—those that killed at least two squirrels per year—successfully raised three times the offspring of nonkillers over the course of their lives. This is the first time scientists have shown that these sorts of killings actually benefit the killer in the wild. And given that it took researchers 4 years of studying prairie dogs to even notice the murders, they say it may be widespread—but sneaky—in other animals, too.
#8 Black-tailed prairie dog,More info:nationalzoo
#7 File:Prairie Dog Washington DC 1.jpg,More info:wikipedia
#6 Supreme Court declines to hear prairie dog protections lawsuit,More info:nypost
SALT LAKE CITY — The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal from residents of a small Utah city challenging endangered-species protections for prairie dogs, but the plaintiffs say their case alleging that their community has been overrun by the animals has made a mark as the Trump administration moves to loosen the contested rules.
The lawsuit was a key driver of the new federal plan that would make it easier to remove or kill prairie dogs, lawyers for the residents of the southwestern city of Cedar City said Monday.
#5 The Linguistic Genius of Prairie Dogs,More info:animalcognition
Con Slobodchikoff, PhD1, has been studying prairie dogs for over 30 years. His studies have focused primarily on Gunnison’s prairie dogs, whose natural habitat is just outside the doors of Northern Arizona University, where Slobodchikoff is a professor emeritus.
After first observing how a colony of prairie dogs reacted to the presence of predators, he discovered that they didn’t just give the same alarm call each time – it sounded different depending on what type of predator the prairie dogs saw.
But that wasn’t the full extent of the calls’ complexity. Slobodchikoff also noticed that even though the calls signaling a certain type of predator would follow a distinct pattern, they contained small nuances that varied with each individual predator of that type.
For instance, the prairie dogs had a similar call for all coyotes, but there were subtle differences for each different coyote. Based on this observation, Slobodchikoff had a sudden insight: “What if they’re describing the physical features of each predator?”
#4 How a Prairie-Dog Plague Vaccine Could Protect Ferrets (and Maybe People, Too),More info:livescience
#3 Translocation of the Black-tailed Prairie Dog in West Texas,More info:bri.sulross
#2 What do prairie dogs have words for?,More info:gizmodo
Prairie dogs may have the most extensive vocabulary of any animal other than humans. They can actually distinguish, linguistically, between a short human in a blue shirt and a tall human in a yellow shirt. Find out what prairie dogs talk about, and whether or not they like the color of your shirt.
Since prairie dogs call to each other to sound the alarm across large colonies, and since they have many different kinds of threats, they benefit if they make their calls specific. And they have made their calls very specific indeed. Prairie dogs have developed an extensive vocabulary which they use to warn others about what exact dangers they face. Professor Con Slobodchikov sat out in fields, listening to the nattering of prairie dogs as they went about their daily business of freaking out at the approach of pretty much everything. After separating out the tones of each of their cries, he was surprised to find that the calls were clearly different. They had calls for different things that had preyed on prairie dogs for thousands of years, like the difference between humans, coyotes, hawks, and dogs. When he played the calls back to the dogs, they launched into the escape plans that they used for each of those specific animals – even though the animals themselves weren’t present. They were clearly imparting information with their calls.
#1 BLACK HILLS WILDLIFE: PRAIRIE DOGS,More info:blackhillsvisitor
Prairie dogs are a type of ground squirrel found in North America. Adults usually grow to be 12 to 16 inches long and weigh between one and four pounds. Wild prairie dogs live about four years. They are mainly herbivores and will eat grasses, seeds, fruits, and insects.
They may look cute, but these little rodents have sharp claws and teeth, so they are able to defend themselves.
They are an essential part of the ecosystem as their intricate underground tunnel systems – called prairie dog towns – create shelter for other animals like rabbits, snakes, and black-footed ferrets.
Prairie dogs are seen as an annoyance for farmers and are often killed as pests, due to their capability of damaging crops and their tunnels damaging landscaping. Their current range in Northern Mexico, the Western United States, and parts of Canada has shrunk to five percent of their historic range.
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