Do you ever hang out in the woods, or a cottage, or a park with lots of trees and brush? Do you ever go camping, visit friends in the country, look closely at road kill?

We do. And this is what we've noticed. Most chipmunks (you know, rats with racing stripes) are deficient in the tail department. You'll see the little fella with half a tail, or a stump, a tail with a nibble or a chomp out of it. It's the rare rodent that sports the full furry chipmunky tail.

This past summer, Pigdump found out why that is:

Incident 1
Sweet little 3-year-old Hannah was busy doing her thing on the porch of Grandma's and Grandpa's cottage. Now this porch is a chipmunk Shangri-la, a smorgasbord of sunflower seeds and shelled peanutty goodness because G and G don't want the little guys to go hungry. Well, didn't Hannah in her speedy boots step on the end of a chipmunk's tail? Didn't that little nib of fur slide off with ease, without a yelp from either party? Didn't that chipmunk go on eating as if nothing happened, even though there was a bit of blood and a bit of tail bone exposed for us all to see? Yes, yes and yes. (and ICK, by the way.)

Incident 2
Fast Louis the cat, while hanging out in the back yard of the cottage as only a cat on a leash can hang out, spotted a chipmunk trying to make a break for it under the deck. In a flash of fur and fury, the chipmunk was in Louis' grasp. I made a big noise to startle Louis so that the little fella could get free. And free he was. Except for the tail he left behind in Louis' paws. Not a snippet, not a chunk, not a few wee hairs, the whole darn tail (see photo above.)

So here's the thing... no doubt chipmunks are dumb and trusting. No, they're just dumb. And they tend to hang about the trough a split second longer than they should. So nature has installed a sure-fire way of protecting these suckers: the quick-release tail. It's a nature thing, a survival thing. Hell, these guys have evolved so that their need for just one more seed outweighs their need for a tail.

If you have any more information on this woodland wonder, please send it along to trishatpigdumpdotcom. Thanks and good luck.
 

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