Curious
Prairie Dog Facts
Prairie Dogs are stout, burrowing rodents among the many varieties of ground squirrels.
Prairie Dog burrows are called "towns."
Most Prairie Dogs hibernate during the Winter.
Settlers called them "dogs" and "sod poodles" because of their high-pitched, bark-like call.
As members of the genus Cynomys (Greek for "mouse dog"), all 5 species of Prairie Dogs belong to the Squirrel Family (Sciuridae).
Prairie Dogs issue different sounds identifying various predators, which include hawks, owls, eagles, ravens, coyotes, badgers, ferrets and snakes.
At the turn of the century, as many as 5 billion Prairie Dogs occupied millions of acres of grass prairies across the West.
In 1900, a huge Prairie Dog settlement, 100 miles by 250 miles, was reported on the high plains of Texas containing an estimated 400 million Prairie Dog!
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