Prairie dogs (genus Cynomys) are herbivorous burrowing ground squirrels native to the grasslands of North America. There are five recognized species of prairie dog: black-tailed, white-tailed, Gunnison's, Utah, and Mexican prairie dogs. 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. They are also found in the Canadian Prairies. Despite the name, they are not actually canines; prairie dogs, along with the marmots, chipmunks, and several other basal genera belong to the ground squirrels (tribe Marmotini), part of the larger squirrel family (Sciuridae).

Prairie dogs are considered a keystone species, with their mounds often being used by other species. Their mound-building encourages grass development and renewal of topsoil, with rich mineral and nutrient renewal in the soil, which can be crucial for soil quality and agriculture. They are extremely important in the food chain, being important to diets of many animals such as the black-footed ferret, swift fox, golden eagle, red tailed hawk, American badger, and coyote. Other species, such as the golden-mantled ground squirrel, mountain plover, and the burrowing owl, also rely on prairie dog burrows for nesting areas. Grazing species, such as plains bison, pronghorn, and mule deer, have shown a proclivity for grazing on the same land used by prairie dogs, with their regeneration of topsoil being important for maintaining healthy humus. Prairie dogs have some of the most complex systems of communication and social structures in the animal kingdom.

The prairie dog habitat has been affected by direct removal by farmers, and the more obvious encroachment of urban development, which has greatly reduced their populations. The removal of prairie dogs "causes undesirable spread of brush", the costs of which to livestock range and soil quality often outweighs the benefits of removal. Other threats include disease. The prairie dog is protected in many areas to maintain local populations and ensure natural ecosystems.

Etymology

thumb|right|Prairie dogs raise their heads from their burrows in response to disturbances.

Prairie dogs are named for their habitat and warning call, which sounds similar to a dog's bark. The name was in use at least as early as 1774. The 1804 journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition note that in September 1804, they "discovered a Village of an animal the French Call the Prairie Dog". Its genus, Cynomys, derives from the Greek for "dog mouse" (κυων kuōn, κυνος kunos – dog; μυς mus, μυός muos – mouse).

The prairie dog is known by several indigenous names. The name wishtonwish was recorded by Lt. Zebulon Pike while on the Arkansas two years after Lewis and Clark's expedition. In Lakota, the word is pispíza or pìspíza.

Classification and first identification

The black-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus) was first described by Lewis and Clark in 1804.

  • Order Rodentia
  • Suborder Sciuromorpha
  • Family Sciuridae (squirrels, chipmunks, marmots, and prairie dogs)
  • Subfamily Xerinae
  • Genus Cynomys
  • Gunnison's prairie dog, Cynomys gunnisoni
  • White-tailed prairie dog, Cynomys leucurus
  • Black-tailed prairie dog, Cynomys ludovicianus
  • Mexican prairie dog, Cynomys mexicanus
  • Utah prairie dog, Cynomys parvidens
  • About 14 other genera in subfamily

Extant species

{| class="wikitable"

|-

! Image !! Common name !! Scientific name !! Distribution

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|120px || Gunnison's prairie dog|| Cynomys gunnisoni||Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico

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|120px || White-tailed prairie dog|| Cynomys leucurus|| Western Wyoming and western Colorado with small areas in eastern Utah and southern Montana.

|-

|120px || Black-tailed prairie dog|| Cynomys ludovicianus|| Saskatchewan, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico

|-

|120px || Mexican prairie dog|| Cynomys mexicanus||Coahuila, Nuevo León, and San Luis Potosí

|-

|120px || Utah prairie dog|| Cynomys parvidens|| Utah

|-

|}

Description

thumb|right|Full view of a prairie dog

Prairie dogs are stout-bodied rodents that, on average, are long, including the short tail, and weigh between . Sexual dimorphism in body mass in the prairie dog varies 105 to 136% between the sexes. shorter than the skull of a canine or actual dog which is between 11.39 and 17.96 cm in length.

The average lifespan of a prairie dog in the wild is 8 to 10 years.

Ecology and behavior

Diet

Prairie dogs are chiefly herbivorous, although they occasionally eat insects. They feed primarily on grasses and small seeds. In the fall, they eat broadleaf forbs. In the winter, lactating and pregnant females supplement their diets with snow for extra water. They also will eat roots, seeds, fruit, buds, and grasses of various species. Black-tailed prairie dogs in South Dakota eat western bluegrass, blue grama, buffalo grass, six weeks fescue, and tumblegrass,

Habitat and burrowing

thumb|Prairie dogs at a burrow entrance

Prairie dogs live mainly at altitudes ranging from above sea level. The areas where they live can get as warm as in the summer and as cold as in the winter. Prairie dog burrows can have up to six entrances. Sometimes, the entrances are simply flat holes in the ground. At other times, they are surrounded by mounds of soil either left as piles or hard-packed. According to him, prairie dog calls contain specific information as to what the predator is, how big it is, what color it is and how fast it is approaching. These have been described as a form of grammar. According to Slobodchikoff, these calls, with their individuality in response to a specific predator, imply that prairie dogs have highly developed cognitive abilities.

Alarm response behavior varies according to the type of predator announced. If the alarm indicates a hawk diving toward the colony, all the prairie dogs in its flight path dive into their holes, while those outside the flight path stand and watch. If the alarm is for a human, all members of the colony immediately rush inside the burrows. For coyotes, the prairie dogs move to the entrance of a burrow and stand outside the entrance, observing the coyote, while those prairie dogs that were inside the burrows come out to stand and watch, as well. For domestic dogs, the response is to observe, standing in place where they were when the alarm was sounded, again with the underground prairie dogs emerging to watch. A black-tailed prairie dog stretches the length of its body vertically and throws its forefeet into the air while making a call. A jump-yip from one prairie dog causes others nearby to do the same.

Nevertheless, prairie dogs are often identified as pests and exterminated from agricultural properties because they are capable of damaging crops, as they clear the immediate area around their burrows of most vegetation.

thumb|Skeleton of a black-footed ferret ([[Black-footed ferret|Mustela nigripes) with a prairie dog skeleton, articulated to show the predator-prey relationship between them. (Museum of Osteology)]]

As a result, prairie dog habitat has been affected by direct removal by farmers, as well as the more obvious encroachment of urban development, which has greatly reduced their populations. The removal of prairie dogs "causes undesirable spread of brush", the costs of which to livestock range may outweigh the benefits of removal. Black-tailed prairie dogs comprise the largest remaining community. In spite of human encroachment, prairie dogs have adapted, continuing to dig burrows in open areas of western cities.

One common concern, which led to the widespread extermination of prairie dog colonies, was that their digging activities could injure horses by fracturing their limbs. According to writer Fred Durso Jr., of E Magazine, though, "after years of asking ranchers this question, we have found not one example."

Another concern is their susceptibility to Bubonic plague.

the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to distribute an oral vaccine it had developed by unmanned aircraft or drones.

In captivity

thumb|Prairie dog at the Minnesota Zoo

Until 2003, primarily black-tailed prairie dogs were collected from the wild for the exotic pet trade in Canada, the United States, Japan, and Europe. They were removed from their burrows each spring, as young pups, with a large vacuum device. They can be difficult to breed in captivity,

They can be difficult pets to care for, requiring regular attention and a very specific diet of grasses and hay. Each year, they go into a period called rut that can last for several months, in which their personalities can drastically change, often becoming defensive or even aggressive. Despite their needs, prairie dogs are very social animals and come to seem as though they treat humans as members of their colony.

In mid-2003, due to cross-contamination at a Madison, Wisconsin-area pet swap from an unquarantined Gambian pouched rat imported from Ghana, several prairie dogs in captivity acquired monkeypox, and subsequently a few humans were also infected. This led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to issue a joint order banning the sale, trade, and transport within the United States of prairie dogs (with a few exceptions). The disease was never introduced to any wild populations. The European Union also banned importation of prairie dogs in response.

All Cynomys species are classed as a "prohibited new organism" under New Zealand's Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996, preventing them from being imported into the country.

Prairie dogs are also very susceptible to bubonic plague, and many wild colonies have been wiped out by it. Also, in 2002, a large group of prairie dogs in captivity in Texas were found to have contracted tularemia. The prairie dog ban is frequently cited by the CDC as a successful response to the threat of zoonosis.

Prairie dogs that were in captivity at the time of the ban in 2003 were allowed to be kept under a grandfather clause, but were not to be bought, traded, or sold, and transport was permitted only to and from a veterinarian under quarantine procedures.

On 8 September 2008, the FDA and CDC rescinded the ban, making it once again legal to capture, sell, and transport prairie dogs. Although the federal ban has been lifted, several states still have in place their own ban on prairie dogs.

The European Union has not lifted its ban on imports from the U.S. of animals captured in the wild. Major European Prairie Dog Associations, such as the Italian Associazione Italiana Cani della Prateria, remain opposed to imports from the United States, due to the high death rate of wild captures. Several zoos in Europe have stable prairie dog colonies that generate enough surplus pups to saturate the EU internal demand, and several associations help owners to give adoption to captive-born animals.

Prairie dogs in captivity may live up to 10 years.

Literary descriptions

  • From George Wilkins Kendall's account of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition: "In their habits, they are clannish, social, and extremely convivial, never living alone like other animals, but on the contrary, always found in villages or large settlements. They are a wild, frolicsome, madcap set of fellows when undisturbed, uneasy and ever on the move, and appear to take especial delight in chattering away the time, and visiting from hole to hole to gossip and talk over each other's affairs—at least so their actions would indicate. On several occasions I crept close to their villages, without being observed, to watch their movements. Directly in the centre of one of them I particularly noticed a very large dog, sitting in front of the door or entrance to his burrow, and by his own actions and those of his neighbors it really seemed as though he was the president, mayor, or chief—at all events, he was the 'big dog' of the place. For at least an hour I secretly watched the operations in this community. During that time the large dog I have mentioned received at least a dozen visits from his fellow-dogs, which would stop and chat with him a few moments, and then run off to their domiciles. All this while he never left his post for a moment, and I thought I could discover a gravity in his deportment not discernible in those by which he was surrounded. Far is it from me to say that the visits he received were upon business, or had anything to do with the local government of the village; but it certainly appeared so. If any animal has a system of laws regulating the body politic, it is certainly the prairie dog."

thumb|right|"Dog Town" or settlement of prairie dogs, from Commerce of the Prairies

  • From Josiah Gregg's journal, Commerce of the Prairies: "Of all the prairie animals, by far the most curious, and by no means the least celebrated, is the little prairie dog. ...The flesh, though often eaten by travelers, is not esteemed savory. It was denominated the 'barking squirrel', the 'prairie ground-squirrel', etc., by early explorers, with much more apparent propriety than the present established name. Its yelp, which resembles that of the little toy-dog, seems its only canine attribute. It rather appears to occupy a middle ground betwixt the rabbit and squirrel—like the former in feeding and burrowing—like the latter in frisking, flirting, sitting erect, and somewhat so in its barking. The prairie dog has been reckoned by some naturalists a species of the marmot (Arctomys ludoviciana); yet it seems to possess scarce any other quality in common with this animal except that of burrowing. ...I have the concurrent testimony of several persons, who have been upon the Prairies in winter, that, like rabbits and squirrels, they issue from their holes every soft day; and therefore lay up no doubt a hoard of 'hay' (as there is rarely anything else to be found in the vicinity of their towns) for winter's use. A collection of their burrows has been termed by travelers a 'dog town,' which comprises from a dozen or so, to some thousands in the same vicinity; often covering an area of several square miles. They generally locate upon firm dry plains, coated with fine short grass, upon which they feed; for they are no doubt exclusively herbivorous. But even when tall coarse grass surrounds, they seem commonly to destroy this within their 'streets,' which are nearly always found 'paved' with a fine species suited to their palates. They must need but little water, if any at all, as their 'towns' are often, indeed generally, found in the midst of the most arid plains—unless we suppose they dig down to subterranean fountains. At least they evidently burrow remarkably deep. Attempts either to dig or drown them out of their holes have generally proved unsuccessful. Approaching a 'village,' the little dogs may be observed frisking about the 'streets'—passing from dwelling to dwelling apparently on visits—sometimes a few clustered together as though in council—here feeding upon the tender herbage—there cleansing their 'houses,' or brushing the little hillock about the door—yet all quiet. Upon seeing a stranger, however, each streaks it to its home, but is apt to stop at the entrance, and spread the general alarm by a succession of shrill yelps, usually sitting erect. Yet at the report of a gun or the too near approach of the visitor, they dart down and are seen no more till the cause of alarm seems to have disappeared.

In culture

In companies that use large numbers of cubicles in a common space, employees sometimes use the term "prairie dogging" to refer to the action of several people simultaneously looking over the walls of their cubicles in response to a noise or other distraction. This action is thought to resemble the startled response of a group of prairie dogs. The same term is also vulgar slang to refer to one who is on the verge of defecating (often involuntarily), with the implication that fecal matter has already begun partially exiting the anus.

The Amarillo Sod Poodles, a minor league baseball team, use a nickname for prairie dogs as their cognomen.

See also

  • Communal burrow

Notes

References

  • Desert USA: Prairie Dogs
  • Prairie dog
  • Greycliff Prairie Dog Town State Park:
  • Prairie Dog Management, Kansas State University
  • Italian association of Prairie dogs