The steppe pika (''Ochotona pusilla'') is a small

mammal Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...

of the pika family, Ochotonidae. It is found in the

steppe In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes. Steppe biomes may include: * the montane grasslands and shrublands biome * the temperate grasslands, ...

s of southern

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

and northern

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

General description

Ochotonidae includes only one genus - ''Ochotona'', formed by 30 living species. Like rodents, pikas have chisel-like incisor teeth, but they also have a second pair of incisors in the upper jaw, followed by two molar teeth in the upper jaw and three molar teeth in the lower jaw. Pikas have no canines. Their teeth grow throughout their life and they need to be worn down. The anatomical structure of the lower jaw bone makes it possible to move the jaw both up and down and sideways. Pikas have sharp senses, they can smell, hear and see very well. Their fibular bone has partially accreted with the tibia. They have five digits on their limbs and pads on feet and toes. Pikas are not hibernating animals. The steppe pika is usually 14.5-18.5 cm long. The tail is reduced, and the short round ears have a lighter lining. The fur is taupe, with lighter hair ends. The coat becomes lighter in winter. Pikas give birth to up to 13 young in a litter, three to five times a year. The size of the litter may depend on the size of population in the area. One of the most distinctive characteristics of the steppe pika is its short, high-pitched alarm call, which gives the animal the name of the "whistling hare". The steppe pika has been called a

relict A relict is a surviving remnant of a natural phenomenon. Biology A relict (or relic) is an organism that at an earlier time was abundant in a large area but now occurs at only one or a few small areas. Geology and geomorphology In geology, a r ...

Late Pliocene Late may refer to: * LATE, an acronym which could stand for: ** Limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy, a proposed form of dementia ** Local-authority trading enterprise, a New Zealand business law ** Local average treatment effect, ...

faunas on the basis of its fossil record, molar structure, karyological traits, and

mtDNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA ...

sequence data.Németh, A., Bárány, A., Csorba, G., Magyari, E., Pazonyi, P., & Pálfy, J. (2017). Holocene mammal extinctions in the Carpathian Basin: a review. ''Mammal Review'', 47(1), 38-52.

Distribution

Steppe pikas can be found in

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

, east of the

Urals The Ural Mountains ( ; rus, Ура́льские го́ры, r=Uralskiye gory, p=ʊˈralʲskʲɪjə ˈɡorɨ; ba, Урал тауҙары) or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through European ...

throughout southern Russia and northern Kazakhstan. During the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

its range was larger and included most of Europe. It survived in the

Carpathian basin The Pannonian Basin, or Carpathian Basin, is a large basin situated in south-east Central Europe. The geomorphological term Pannonian Plain is more widely used for roughly the same region though with a somewhat different sense, with only th ...

until the end of the

Chalcolithic The Copper Age, also called the Chalcolithic (; from grc-gre, χαλκός ''khalkós'', "copper" and ''líthos'', "stone") or (A)eneolithic (from Latin '' aeneus'' "of copper"), is an archaeological period characterized by regular ...

, in the middle Urals until the Middle

Holocene The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togethe ...

, and in the southern Urals until the Late Holocene.Kosintsev, P. A., & Bachura, O. P. (2014). Formation of recent ranges of mammals in the Urals during the Holocene. ''Biology Bulletin'', 41(7), 629-637.

Ecology

Steppe pika inhabits steppes covered by high grasses and bushes, where it finds shelter from its natural enemies, such as: foxes, corsacs, Turkestan polecats, ermine and other predators. Another of its niches is foothill of river valleys. Unlike other species of the family of pikas, ''Ochotona pusilla'' is a nocturnal creature. It is normally heard but not seen. The males emit a long series of low trills and the females do also sing to attract males and respond to other females.Aulagnier S.; P. Haffner, A. J. Mitchell-Jones, F. Moutou & J. Zima (2009) ''Mammals of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East'', A&C Black, London. It lives in a flock, dwelling systems of underground passages with several openings. Pikas feed on soft parts of juicy plants and low shrubs, near its dens. One of its favorite plants is wormwood. Due to the fact it doesn’t hibernate during winter, early (from June) it begins to gather grass, and dry it formed in haystacks. In the late autumn it moves the haystacks to the main chamber of its den. The steppe pika inhabits only flatlands. Its

fossil record A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in ...

in mountain areas is always linked to

owl pellet A pellet, in ornithology, is the mass of undigested parts of a bird's food that some bird species occasionally regurgitate. The contents of a bird's pellet depend on its diet, but can include the exoskeletons of insects, indigestible plant ma ...

s and not indicative of the pika's past habits. Pikas are generally regarded as an excellent indicator of the health of steppe ecosystems, as they strictly avoid human disturbance.

Population and environmental concerns

A decrease has been noted in the population of pikas, caused by climate changes and expanding agriculture. The pica has been included in the list of potentially endangered species but is classified as “least concern”. One of the places where it is protected is Orenburgsky Zapovednik. A growing pika population may have a local impact on vegetation through feeding.

References

#ADW, 2013. #http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/Ochotonidae/ #http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/Ochotona_pusilla/#0a4c74e0589540d73a9589064bd7626e #Fisher C. T., Yalden D. W., 2004. The steppe pika Ochotona pusilla in Britain, and a new northerly record. Mammal Review. 34(4): 320-324 #Fostowicz-Frelik Ł., Frelik G. J., 2010. The earliest occurrence of the steppe pika (Ochotona pusilla) in Europe near the #Pliocene/Pleistocene boundary. Naturwissenschaften. 97:325-329 #Grzimek B., 1975. Grzimek’s animal life encyclopedia. Vol. 12, Mammals 3. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York. #Grzimek B., 2004. Grzimek’s animal life encyclopedia. Vol. 16: Mammals V. Gale, Detroit. #IUCN, 2013. http://oldredlist.iucnredlist.org/details/summary/15052/0 #Kowalski K., 1971. Ssaki Zarys teriologii. Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Kraków. #Kowalski K., 1991. Mały słownik zoologiczny. Ssaki. Wiedza powszechna, Warszawa. #Niu Y., Wei F., Li M., Liu X., Feng Z., 2004. Phylogeny of pikas (Lagomorpha, Ochotona) inferred from mitochondrial cytochrome b sequences. Folia Zool. 53(2): 141–155 #Serafiński W., Wielgus-Serafińska E., 1976. Ssaki. Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warszawa. #Zooschool, 2013, http://zooschool.ru/mouse/leporidae/6.shtml {{Taxonbar, from=Q587278 Mammals described in 1769 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot