Yosemite timber tiger aka chipmunk
by LeeAnn McLaneGoetz McLaneGoetzStudioLLCcom
Title
Yosemite timber tiger aka chipmunk
Artist
LeeAnn McLaneGoetz McLaneGoetzStudioLLCcom
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
Yosemite chipmunk
The common name originally may have been spelled "chitmunk" (from the Odawa word jidmoonh, meaning "red squirrel"; cf. Ojibwe, ajidamoo). The earliest form cited in the Oxford English Dictionary (from 1842) is "chipmonk", but "chipmunk" appears in several books from the 1820s and 1830s. Other early forms include "chipmuck" and "chipminck", and in the 1830s they were also referred to as "chip squirrels," possibly in reference to the sound they make. They are also called "striped squirrels", "chippers", "munks", "timber tigers", or "ground squirrels", though the name "ground squirrel" usually refers to other squirrels, such as those of the genus Spermophilus.
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June 26th, 2011
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LeeAnn McLane-Goetz
These small mammals fulfill several important functions in forest ecosystems. Their activities harvesting and hoarding tree seeds play a crucial role in seedling establishment. They consume many different kinds of fungi, including those involved in symbiotic mycorrhizal associations with trees, and are an important vector for dispersal of the spores of subterranean sporocarps (truffles) which have co-evolved with these and other mycophagous mammals and thus lost the ability to disperse their spores through the air.
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