Chipmunk vs Squirrel: Check for Face Stripes

Look at the face. A chipmunk has stripes on its face, running through and around the eye, as well as down its back. A squirrel has no face stripes. That rule handles the obvious case, a small striped animal versus a big gray squirrel, and it also handles the tricky one: striped ground squirrels that people call chipmunks, which have body stripes but plain faces.

Side by side

Feature	Eastern chipmunk	Gray squirrel
Length	About 9 to 11 inches including tail	About 16 to 20 inches including tail
Weight	About 3 to 5 ounces	About 1 to 1 1/2 pounds
Stripes	Dark and light stripes on the face and down the back, ending at a reddish rump	None
Color	Reddish brown	Gray, sometimes brown or black
Tail	Thinner, furry, held straight up when running	Large, very bushy, often curled over the back
Cheeks	Stretchy cheek pouches; often seen stuffed with seeds	No pouches; carries food in the mouth
Lives	On the ground; burrows	In trees; leaf nests and tree cavities
Voice	High "chip" calls, repeated; low "chuck" calls	Raspy barks, chatters and squeals

The size difference is large enough that you rarely need the stripes. A chipmunk fits in your palm. A gray squirrel is about four times its weight.

The striped look-alikes

Animal	Where	How to tell it from a chipmunk
Thirteen-lined ground squirrel	Lawns, golf courses and prairies in the central US	Alternating stripes and rows of spots down the body; no stripes on the face; longer, slimmer body
Golden-mantled ground squirrel	Mountains and forests of the West	Stripes along the sides but not on the face; coppery head; larger and chunkier
Red squirrel	Northern and mountain forests	Small, reddish, a white eye ring and no stripes; loud chattering from trees
Least chipmunk and other western chipmunks	The West and northern forests	Real chipmunks: stripes on the face, smaller than the eastern chipmunk
Flying squirrel	Forests; mostly seen at night at feeders	Large dark eyes, a loose fold of skin between front and back legs, flat tail

The golden-mantled ground squirrel is the classic case: hikers in the western mountains photograph one at a trailhead and call it a chipmunk. It is bigger, and its face has no stripes. Western chipmunks at the same trailhead do.

The other tree squirrels

Squirrel	Size	Look	Where
Gray squirrel	About 1 to 1 1/2 lb	Gray with a white belly; black forms common in some cities	Eastern US and many western cities
Fox squirrel	About 1 to 3 lb, the largest tree squirrel	Rusty orange-brown with an orange belly	Central and eastern US, open woods and towns
Red squirrel	About 7 to 9 oz	Small, reddish, white eye ring, white belly	Northern and mountain conifer forests
Western gray squirrel	About 1 to 2 lb	Silvery gray, very bushy tail	Pacific states

Red squirrels leave piles of stripped cone scales, called middens, at the base of trees, and they scold loudly from branches. None of these have stripes, so none of them are chipmunks.

A year in a chipmunk's life

Season	What they are doing
Early spring	Emerge from burrows; mating; loud chip calls
Late spring and summer	Young appear above ground; foraging for seeds, berries, insects
Fall	Busy hoarding seeds and nuts in cheek pouches; the most visible season
Winter	Mostly underground, waking periodically to eat stored food

Behavior gives them away

Chipmunks stay on or near the ground. They dash across lawns and patios with their tails straight up, dive into small holes, and climb only short distances into shrubs and low trees. In late summer and fall they spend most of their time gathering seeds and nuts into their cheek pouches and carrying them to underground storage. Tree squirrels spend their lives up in the canopy, leap between branches, bury nuts one at a time in scattered spots, and build bulky leaf nests high in trees. A small animal disappearing into a hole in the ground is a chipmunk or ground squirrel. A larger one racing up a trunk is a tree squirrel.

Burrows and nests

A chipmunk burrow entrance is a clean, round hole about 2 inches across with no pile of dirt around it; the chipmunk carries the soil away and hides it. Look along foundations, under steps, beside walls and in flower beds. Ground squirrel holes are similar in size but often in open lawns. Tree squirrels do not dig burrows; their nests are football-sized clumps of leaves high in trees, and they sometimes move into attics through gaps under the roofline.

Damage and what to do

• Chipmunks can undermine patios, stairs and retaining walls with their tunnels, and dig up bulbs and seedlings. Plant bulbs under wire mesh or with gravel, keep stacked wood and rock piles away from the house, and move bird feeders away from the foundation, since spilled seed is their main attraction. L-shaped wire mesh along a foundation or wall discourages burrowing. Live trapping is legal in many areas but new chipmunks often move in.
• Tree squirrels raid bird feeders, chew wiring and wood, and nest in attics. Squirrel baffles on feeder poles, trimming branches back from the roof and sealing gaps under the eaves are the useful steps. If squirrels are already in the attic, a one-way exclusion door lets them out without letting them back in; check for young first in spring.
• Ground squirrels dig in lawns and gardens; fencing that extends below ground and removing cover help.

Do not hand-feed chipmunks or squirrels. Tame animals bite, and feeding draws more of them to your foundation and attic. Small rodents rarely carry rabies, but any bite should be washed well and checked by a doctor.

Chipmunk or rat?

A brown animal running along a fence or foundation is sometimes a rat. Norway rats are bigger, about 7 to 10 inches in body plus a long, naked, scaly tail, with no stripes, and they are most active at night. Their burrows usually have a fan of loose dirt at the entrance, and they leave dark droppings about 3/4 inch long along their routes. A small striped animal out in daylight with a furry tail held straight up is a chipmunk. That difference matters, because rats near a house are a sanitation problem worth acting on quickly, and chipmunks are not.

When one gets inside

Chipmunks occasionally wander into garages, sheds and houses through open doors or gaps. Close interior doors, open an outside door, and give it a quiet path out; it wants to leave as much as you want it gone. A live trap baited with peanut butter or sunflower seeds works if it hides. Squirrels in living spaces are handled the same way. Animals in the attic or walls are a different job, covered above.

Photos and tracks

A side view that shows the face and the back is all it takes. The animal track identifier handles footprints and burrow photos as well: chipmunk and squirrel tracks both show four toes on the front foot and five on the back, with the hind feet landing ahead of the front in a bounding pattern, but squirrel prints are roughly twice the size. Include a coin for scale. Blurry shots of an animal in mid-dash are the hardest case; a few seconds of patience usually gets you one sitting still on a log or wall.

For the other small animals that dig in the yard, see the mole vs vole guide.