Prairie+Dog

__Habit____at:__
Prairie dogs live on deserts, plateaus and plains. Almost everywhere there is short to medium grass prairies.

__Range:__
Most of the United States like Montana, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, higher elevation of the Mojave, Canada, and Mexico. Also in the Chihuahuan Desert.

__Physical Characteristics:__
They're slightly grizzled and fat with broad, rounded heads, hairy tails and short legs. They're about 1 1/2 to 3lbs, head and body 11 to 13in. long. The tail length is about 3 to 4in. Their color is yellowish with darker ears with a whitish belly.

__Diet:__
They're mostly vegetarian, but nursing females have been both cannibalizing and communally nursing each others pups. They're diet is mostly made up of grass, roots, weeds, blossoms, and some insects (all their water comes from the food they eat).

__Behavior And Adaptations:__
Social system composed of one male and several close kin females and their babies. They dig dikes for rain or floods to protect the holes that they live in. Some are dormant for short periods of cold weather.

__Reproduction:__
The average litter is 3-8pups each year (5avg).

__Relationship To People:__
Most people don't like them. When people need land to build houses on they have to move the Prairie Dogs so the suck them out of there holes and send them to Ferret farms.

__Status/History:__
They're common in the western United States, but are becoming rare because we need land so we take theirs. Prairie Dogs are related to squirrels and other rodents.

__Other Information:__
media type="youtube" key="rwn2mphG_c4&hl=en" height="355" width="425"

__Sources:__
1.http://www.desertusa.com 2.Hoogland, John L. "Prairie Dogs" World Book 2001 Edition Chicago, IL 2001