American Pika by WillemSvdMerwe on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

I'm indebted to for giving me permission to use her photo as reference. Here is the original: www.deviantart.com/art/The-Pik…

Please check out her gallery of amazing wildlife art!

American Pikas, Ochotona princeps, occur in mountainous regions in the west of the USA and the southwest of Canada. Further north they're replaced by the Collared Pika. Pikas are not rodents, but relatives of rabbits and hares. They're much smaller, this species being about 170g in weight. Like rabbits, they also excrete soft green pellet faeces which they eat again to extract more nutriments from the food before excreting them again as hard pellets. Pikas live in high, rocky places where there's much available shelter. They don't hibernate, but gather stores of plants that they make into piles of 'hay' that last them through the winter. Pikas have piercing 'ee-ee' calls and are sometimes called 'whistling hares'. The American species might be threatened by global warming. Pikas can overheat very easily. Not all populations have higher, cooler ground available to which they can retreat.

Watercolour, about A3 in size.