Neha Patil (Editor)

Giant pika

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Kingdom
  
Animalia

Class
  
Mammalia

Family
  
Ochotonidae

Rank
  
Species

Phylum
  
Chordata

Order
  
Lagomorpha

Genus
  
Ochotona

Giant pika httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediacommonsthu

Similar
  
Sardinian dhole, Acratocnus, Equus scotti, Megalotragus, Mylohyus

Giant pika, Wharton's pika (Ochotona whartoni) is an extinct Pleistocene and early Holocene species of mammal in the family Ochotonidae, distributed in the northern parts of North America (Alaska, USA and Canada). Very similar forms were found also in Siberia.

Contents

Distribution

Giant pika was found in Alaska (United States), Yukon (O. whartoni and O cf. whartoni, large number of locations), Alberta and Ontario (Canada). Ochotona near O. whartoni (O. cf. whartoni) is known from Eastern Siberia and Kolyma as well.

Giant pika O. whartoni immigrated from Eurasia to North America during the Early Pleistocene via the Bering Land Bridge, along with small pikas close to the "O. pusilla group". Much earlier at the Miocene-Pliocene boundary came O. spanglei - the oldest Ochotona found in North America, what was followed by approximately three million year long gap in the known North American pikas record.

Detailed fossil distribution

  • Canada
  • Old Crow River, Yukon, Irvingtonian (1.8 - 0.3 Ma) and Middle Pleistocene (0.8 - 0.1 Ma), O cf. whartoni and O. whartoni.
  • Old Crow River, Yukon, Late/Upper Pleistocene (Late Illinoian-Sangamonian)
    (0.1 - 0.0 Ma / ~125,000-80,000 BP), at least 10 locations, O. cf. whartoni
  • Thistle Creek, Yukon, Middle Pleistocene (0.8 - 0.1 Ma), O. whartoni
  • Eagle Cave, Alberta, >33,000 BP
  • Elba Cave at Elba, Ontario, 8670±220 BP (the last known occurrence of this species)
  • Kelso Cave, Ontario, Late Wisconsian (>32,000 BP)
  • United States
  • Cape Deceit, Alaska, Cape Deceit Formation, Irvingtonian (1.8 - 0.3 Ma), O. whartoni,
    (the species was discovered here)
  • Gold Hill Cut at Fairbanks, Alaska
  • Russia - only O cf. whartoni
  • From eastern Siberia - Zayarsk site to the Kolyma Range area (Krestovka Sections, Yakutia), in Kolyma from Late Cenozoic
  • Western Siberia, but mentions only Ochotona as occurring there.

    • Biology

    Giant pika is much larger than other North American pikas, but of similar size to the extinct early and middle Pleistocene O. complicidens and extant O. koslowi (Koslov's pika), both from China, and may belong to one of them. Unlike American pika (O. princeps), giant pika habitat might be not scree slopes, but tundra and steppe, similarly to Euroasian pikas.

    Occurrence and extinction

    Giant pika was found in the North American fauna from Irvingtonian (1.8 - 0.3 Ma, Lower / Middle Pleistocene) throughout Middle Pleistocene to Late Pleistocene (0.1 - 0.0 Ma) locations.

    But the last occurrence of the giant pika is known from early Holocene from eastern North America (a cave at Elba in the Niagara Escarpment, Ontario) and its radiometric date is 8670±220 years BP (14C age) or 10251-9140 BP (calibrated date). It is possible that the large form of Ochotona survived in the rocky areas along the Niagara Escarpment so long as a relict population.

    References

    Giant pika Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA