Tamias striatus
The eastern chipmunk is a chipmunk species found in eastern North America. It is the only living member of the genus Tamias.

Rhododendrites · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- eastern chipmunkPBDB
- Sits inside
- TamiasPBDB
- Diet
- granivore, frugivorePBDB, for Sciuridae
- Life habit
- scansorialPBDB, for Sciuridae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
- Mass
- 3.75 gWikidata
Time the record covers
At least 198 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 210 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.
35 occurrences of Tamias striatus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
35 occurrences- Pleistocene77%
- Holocene23%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Tamias striatus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Tamias striatus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
508 taxa- Marmota monax23 sites
- Microtus pennsylvanicus23 sites
- Procyon lotor22 sites
- Neotoma floridana20 sites
- Odocoileus virginianus20 sites
- Myotis19 sites
- Synaptomys cooperi19 sites
- Eptesicus fuscus17 sites
- Ondatra zibethicus17 sites
- Castor canadensis16 sites
- Clethrionomys gapperi16 sites
- Peromyscus16 sites
- Sylvilagus16 sites
- Erethizon dorsatum15 sites
- Tamiasciurus hudsonicus15 sites
- Blarina brevicauda14 sites
- Microtus14 sites
- Sorex14 sites
- Glaucomys volans13 sites
- Spermophilus tridecemlineatus13 sites
- Ursus americanus13 sites
- Microtus chrotorrhinus12 sites
- Neogale vison12 sites
- Mictomys borealis11 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 34 sites for Tamias striatus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
19 references- Quaternary vertebrate localities of Virginia and their avian and mammalian fauna7
- A late Pleistocene and early Holocene mammalian fauna from Little Beaver Cave, Central Ozarks, Missouri.5
- Paleontology and historic field trip of the John Guilday Cave Preserve (Trout Rock)3
- Animal remains from Ohio rock shelters3
- Mammals of the Elm Creek Local Fauna, Late Pleistocene of Beaver County, Oklahoma2
- Ecological Significance of Displaced Boreal Mammals in West Virginia Caves2
- After Hopewell in Southern Québec1
- Fossil Mammals From Island Ford Cave, Virginia, USA1
- A Pleistocene tapir and associated mammals from the southwestern Ozark Highland1
- Melrose Caverns: A Late Pleistocene Vertebrate Locality in Virginia, U.S.A.1
- Guilday, 19841
- Pointe-du-Buisson 4: Quarante Siècles d'archives Oubiliées1
Each of the 35 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 7 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content3
Picture of Tamias striatus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Rhododendrites
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Tamias striatus · du:ea:0102
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itTamias through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)