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The small, short-tailed Belding's ground squirrel (Urocitellus beldingi), is a familar sight to summer visitors to high mountain meadows in the Sierra Nevada. They live in loose colonies, feeding on grass and seeds in the summer and hibernating for as much as nine months of the year. Their social behavior is a fascinating mixture of altruism, aggression, and occasional infanticide and cannibalism. I photographed these squirrels -- mostly juveniles -- near Mammoth Mountain, along Convict Creek, and near Mono Lake in the eastern Sierra Nevada. In some of the images, notice how they have nibbled the grass down to the consistency of a golf course green. |
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