Head to head
Eastern Chipmunk vs Eastern Gray Squirrel
A chipmunk is a squirrel, in the same family, so the real question is how the small striped ground-dwelling kind differs from the familiar bushy-tailed tree kind. Using the eastern chipmunk and the eastern gray squirrel, the two most often seen together in eastern North America, the differences are clear.
| Eastern Chipmunk | Eastern Gray Squirrel | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Small ground squirrel | Tree squirrel |
| Size | About 25 cm and 100 g | About 45 cm and 500 g |
| Stripes | Bold stripes on the back and the face | None; plain grey or grey-brown |
| Tail | Slim, held straight up when running | Large and bushy |
| Where it nests | An underground burrow with a hidden entrance | A leafy drey or a tree hole |
| Winter | Torpor in the burrow, waking to eat a stored larder | Active all winter, living off scattered caches |
| Cheek pouches | Yes, large internal pouches | No |
| Where you see it | On the ground and low rocks and logs | In trees and running along fences and wires |
Chipmunk vs Squirrel: common questions
Is a chipmunk a kind of squirrel?
Yes. Chipmunks belong to the squirrel family, Sciuridae, and are essentially small, striped, ground-dwelling squirrels. The family also includes the tree squirrels, the larger ground squirrels, marmots and woodchucks, and prairie dogs. What marks a chipmunk out within the family is its small size, the strong pattern of stripes on both the body and the face, the internal cheek pouches, and the habit of living in a burrow and hoarding a central food store for winter rather than relying on body fat or scattered caches. There are around 25 chipmunk species, all but one of them in North America.
How do I tell a chipmunk from a young squirrel?
The stripes settle it. A chipmunk of any age has a clear pattern of dark and light stripes running down its back and, crucially, stripes across its face through the eye, which no tree squirrel has. A young gray squirrel is a smaller version of the adult, plain grey or grey-brown with a bushy tail and no stripes. Size and shape help too, as even a juvenile squirrel has a proportionally larger, fluffier tail and longer body than the compact, small-tailed chipmunk. Behaviour is another cue, since a chipmunk stays low, darting between cover on the ground and diving into a hole, while a young squirrel is usually near or in a tree.
Do chipmunks and squirrels hibernate?
They handle winter differently. The eastern gray squirrel does not hibernate at all. It stays active right through the cold months, relying on fat reserves and on the many nuts it buried in autumn, which it relocates largely by smell, and it simply holes up in its drey or a tree cavity during the worst weather. The eastern chipmunk does something in between. It retreats to its burrow and enters torpor, with body temperature and heart rate greatly reduced, but it does not sleep straight through. Every few days it rouses, warms up, eats from the seed store it built in autumn, and passes waste before going dormant again. Because it depends on that larder, a poor seed year can make for a hard winter.