Chipmunk Coloring Pages
Welcome to my Chipmunk coloring pages section.
Chipmunks belong to the squirrel family but you can spot them by the stripes that run down their backs and right across their faces. All but one of the 25 or so kinds live in North America and the odd one out is the Siberian chipmunk in Asia. Most spend their days on the ground rather than up in the trees and they carry food home in stretchy cheek pouches.
Jump to: Species | Burrows | Food | Pups | Stripes | Cartoons | Floral Animal Art
Which Chipmunk Is Which?
The eastern chipmunk is the only kind in the eastern half of North America so most chipmunks you meet there are this one. It's plump with a rusty patch on its rump and its five dark back stripes stop before they reach its tail. Out west there are more than twenty other kinds that look so alike that scientists sometimes struggle to tell them apart. The least chipmunk is the most common of them. It's much smaller than the eastern with a narrow face and a long tail that it holds straight up when it runs.
A Chipmunk's Hidden Front Door
A chipmunk's front door is a small round hole with no pile of dirt around it. The chipmunk carries every bit of soil away in its cheeks and drops it somewhere else so nobody notices the entrance. The tunnel can wind for several metres and leads to a leaf-lined bedroom and a separate pantry for food. Some western chipmunks skip the burrow and tuck their nests into logs or tree hollows instead.
What's in Those Cheeks?
Chipmunk cheek pouches stretch so far that one trip can carry home a whole mouthful of seeds or a few acorns. All of it goes into the burrow pantry because chipmunks don't sleep straight through winter. They doze for days then wake up for a snack from their stash. They also eat berries and mushrooms along with the odd insect or worm.
Chipmunk Pups
Baby chipmunks are called pups and a litter usually has four or five. They're born hairless with their eyes shut and spend about six weeks in the nest before they venture outside. Their mother raises them on her own and eastern chipmunks often have two litters in a year.
How the Chipmunk Got Its Stripes
Stories about how the chipmunk got its stripes are told in several Indigenous North American traditions and the details change from one telling to the next. In this version Bear is the biggest boaster in the forest and he's so sure of his strength that he orders the sun not to rise. Chipmunk laughs and says the sun doesn't take orders from anybody. Sure enough the sun climbs into the sky anyway. Bear swipes at the little chipmunk in a huff. He misses but his claws still leave stripes down its back and they've been there ever since.
Chipmunks in Songs and Cartoons
Chippy Hackee from Beatrix Potter
Chippy Hackee is a striped chipmunk from Beatrix Potter's 1911 book The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes. He lends his nightcap to a squirrel who is stuck in a hollow tree and keeps feeding him nuts until the squirrel is far too fat to squeeze out of the hole. Chippy has run off from home himself, so he'd much rather stay put and chuckle.
Alvin and the Chipmunks
Alvin, Simon and Theodore started out as the singing stars of a 1958 hit record. Their creator sped up the tape on his recordings so the voices came out high and squeaky. People loved it so much that the chipmunks went on to cartoons and movies. The Chipettes joined the cast in the 1980s.
Floral Chipmunk Art
Forest flowers start blooming in spring right around the time chipmunks wake from their winter naps. This chipmunk has tiny flowers running down its stripes with bigger blooms and ferns filling the rest of its body.
Floral Animal Art coloring pages
More Chipmunk Printables
