13-Lined Ground Squirrel

I saw a new critter! I saw a new critter! As you might have guessed by the title of the post, this little fella's a 13-Lined Ground Squirrel!Yesterday's new critter was just an ordinary turkey. Many of you have already heard of those guys, usually as part of a great meal. But I bet most of you haven't heard of this little squirrel.

Well, I have barely heard of these squirrels myself. But there was something I remembered after I saw this one. There were some posts over at My Quality Day awhile back that featured 13-Lined Ground Squirrels. I didn't give a direct link to the posts on purpose. Go and dig around the blog for a bit to find them. You'll find some other good stuff along the way.

Anyway, at first glance many of you might think this little animal is a chipmunk, and so did I. He really does look very similar, and they're about the same size. Very small, you could fit him in just one hand. But there are a few tip offs. First of all, his snout is flatter than a chipmunk's pointy little face. His stripes are also different. This ground squirrel has more stripes than a chipmunk. And he has dots between the stripes. But wait, there's more!

I mentioned the shape of his face. His face resembles a groundhog more than it does a chipmunk. In fact, his whole head looks more like that of a groundhog, which is much much bigger; bigger than a cat. Of course, since this little dude is, well, little, that means he's much cuter than a groundhog.

When I first found him he stared at me for what seemed like half of forever. Maybe he had never seen one of me before either. A guy dressed in a giant white rat costume holding a camera really is a rare thing I guess. And I think the only pictures of me belong to a fox squirrel named Flynn who says he's going to show the world, but has yet to do so.

After looking at me and any other thing that took his interest, the little 13-lined ground squirrel finally went back to snuffling around in the grass. He's so small that when he hunched down I couldn't see him over the short mown grass. These little guys are supposed to be a little bigger than chipmunks, but this one looked smaller.

That post on the left of the picture is a four by four sign post. That should show you how small this little beastie actually is. If you look closely you can see the stripes and dashes on his back. After this picture he disappeared into the grass. He was still there, but too small to see. I had enough pictures, so I let him be.


Nature Center Magazine - I have a new Free Wallpaper for you that you might not believe. Then again, you might.