Eastern Chipmunk

Yes. Chipmunks are members of the squirrel family, Sciuridae, and are best thought of as small, striped, mostly ground-living squirrels. They share the family's chisel-like front teeth, bushy-tailed body plan, and seed-eating habits with tree squirrels and the larger ground squirrels, marmots, and prairie dogs. What sets chipmunks apart is their small size, the bold pattern of dark and pale stripes running down the back and through the face, the internal cheek pouches, and the habit of living in an extensive burrow and storing food rather than relying on body fat. There are about 25 chipmunk species, all but one of them in North America.

A lot for its size. The cheek pouches are elastic, fur-lined pockets that open inside the mouth and extend back along the neck, and a foraging chipmunk fills them by tucking food in with its forepaws. Recorded loads include more than 30 sunflower seeds, several whole acorns or hazelnuts, or dozens of grains of corn or wheat carried at once, giving the animal a comically swollen-faced look. The chipmunk then returns to its burrow, empties the pouches into a storage chamber by pushing forward with its paws, and heads out for more, building up a larder that can hold many litres of seeds by the start of winter.

Not in the deep, continuous way that a woodchuck or a ground squirrel does. Through the cold months the eastern chipmunk stays underground and drops into torpor, with its body temperature, heart rate, and breathing greatly reduced, but it rouses itself every few days, warms back up, feeds from the seeds and nuts it stored in the autumn, and relieves itself, before going torpid again. This is sometimes called facultative or intermittent hibernation. Because it relies on a food store rather than fat reserves, a poor seed year in autumn can mean a hard winter, and in the mildest parts of the range chipmunks may stay active above ground on sunny winter days.

Usually only a minor one. Chipmunks dig up and eat flower bulbs and newly planted seeds, take strawberries and other soft fruit, raid bird feeders, and their burrows can occasionally undermine a patio slab, a wall footing, or a section of lawn. Against that, they eat many insect pests and slugs and help spread garden plants. Most damage can be reduced by protecting bulbs with wire mesh, keeping feeders away from the house, not leaving spilled seed on the ground, and tolerating a resident chipmunk or two, which will defend the territory against others. They are not a meaningful disease risk in most areas and are not aggressive toward people.