What do prairie dogs do

Cases linked to prairie dogs are generally from pets picking up fleas from infected areas. A vaccine to prevent outbreaks is showing promise.

Prairie dogs live in complex underground burrows with designated areas for nurseries, sleeping, and toilets. The tunnel system is designed to allow air to flow through them, providing ventilation; this is facilitated by angling the mound at the top to utilize prevailing winds. To provide safety, every exit also has a listening post, and a sentry is found at the opening of active burrows.

Prairie dogs are social animals, and they live in family groups called coteries that typically contain an adult male, two or three adult females, and their young. Coteries are grouped together into wards, and several wards of prairie dogs make up a town or colony. The largest town ever recorded belonged to a large group of black-tailed prairie dogs in Texas and covered 25, square miles. Prairie dogs appear to kiss when they come and go in the area around their burrow.

Researchers call this behavior a "greet-kiss. If they belong to the same family, they continue with their day. If not related, they will often fight or chase the interloper from the area. Some prairie dogs are bridges between groups. Researchers are interested in those because removing the bridge animals may slow or stop the plague's spread.

As a keystone species for the prairies, entire ecosystems rely on these tiny mammals. Their tunneling aerates the soil, and their dung is high in nitrogen, which improves soil quality. Grasses and other plants are kept clipped short, so prairie dogs and other prey species have a clear view of predators.

Their burrows provide homes for snakes, spiders, burrowing owls , black-footed ferrets, and more. Badgers not only take advantage of prairie dog architecture by moving into burrows, but they also make meals out of the prairie dogs themselves. Prairie dogs are also prey to coyotes, foxes, snakes, birds of prey, and bobcats. Prairie dogs' means of communication is said to be even more complex than that of chimpanzees and dolphins.

Researcher Con Slobodchikoff of Northern Arizona University found that the animals have barks and chirps that communicate numerous messages. Many messages alert the colony about predators. Prairie dogs embed information about the predator's size, color, direction, and speed in a single bark. Colonies consistently use the same barks to describe the same predators, even if it is a new threat. Prairie dogs even have a specific call that describes humans with guns.

Prairie dogs are under constant threat from predators like hawks and coyotes, so they protect themselves by staying in continuous communication. This often results in a contagious jump-yip behavior where one prairie dog's action is mimicked by others.

One animal stands on its hind legs, stretches its arms out, throws back its head, and yips. Upon hearing the sound, other prairie dogs copy the behavior, and jump-yips spread throughout the colony. Prairie dogs don't kill many animals for food. Their bodies are mostly tan, except for their lighter-colored belly. The easiest way to tell the black-tailed prairie dog from other prairie dogs is to look for its namesake black-tipped tail.

Prairie dogs live in grasslands throughout the Great Plains. Their population health impacts numerous other species, so they are one of the keystone species of the West.

Prairie dogs are very social and live in large colonies in underground burrows. Not only do prairie dogs live together, but they also share the responsibilities to look out for predators. While other prairie dogs are foraging for plants, a few prairie dogs will become look outs and watch for hawks, coyotes, or badgers. Prairie dogs eat a variety of seeds, stems, roots, grasses, weeds, and the leaves of flowering plants.

They also eat insects. Most of the water that a prairie dog needs to survive comes from the plants that it eats. Prairie dogs are very social creatures that reside in complex burrows belowground. These tunnels house many colonies or towns of prairie dogs.

A family group is called a coterie. This is a polygynous mating system and is made up of one male and multiple females. Prairie dogs are very vocal creatures with a highly sophisticated vocal language. Not only do they make high pitched yips and barks to warn about the presence of predators, but they have different warning calls for different predator types as well! Female prairie dogs go through the estrus cycle once a year each winter for only an hour.

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