The Collared Pika

High in the wind-scoured talus slopes of Alaska and Canada’s Yukon Territory, where snow lingers long and summer is more rumor than season, lives a creature not much bigger than a russet potato — and far more industrious.

The collared pika (Ochotona collaris) is a furry, round-eared member of the lagomorph family, cousin to rabbits and hares. It has no tail to speak of, a high-pitched call like a squeaky toy lost in a rockslide, and perhaps the most sophisticated food storage system of any mammal that doesn’t walk on two legs and shop at a supermarket.

And while you probably won’t see one unless you’re hiking through loose boulders above the tree line, collared pikas are quietly performing a seasonal ritual that’s equal parts survival strategy and natural pharmacy. It’s called haying. And it’s brilliant.

Haypiles: The Pika’s Winter Lifeline

Unlike bears, pikas don’t hibernate. They can’t migrate either. When winter rolls in, as it does with a vengeance, they stay put, surviving off food they harvested and stored by hand. Or rather, by mouth.

All summer, they scamper tirelessly through alpine meadows, collecting mouthfuls of plants to dry in the sun and stash between rocks. These are their haypiles — thick bundles of herbs, grasses, and wildflowers tucked safely away from weather and would-be thieves. Each pile is a lifeline, carefully built to feed one pika for up to eight months of snow and silence.

And these piles aren’t just random stacks of clover and twigs. According to University of Utah biologist Dr. Denise Dearing, they’re not just drying plants — they’re curing them. Much like aging cheese or fermenting vegetables, pikas are managing the chemistry of their food supply to last through the cold.

Timing Is Everything

Collared pikas don’t just pick what’s handy. They harvest specific plants at specific times, gauging ripeness, moisture content, and chemical composition. Early in the season, they go for fast-growing flowers and grasses — quick to bloom, quick to dry. Later, they shift to plants that need more time to cure or that offer longer-lasting nutrients.

They don’t have calendars or spreadsheets. What they do have is instinct honed over millennia, passed down by survival and selection. If a pika gets the timing wrong, the whole winter can go south.

According to research by ecologist Dr. Johanna Varner and colleagues, the pika’s timing is crucial for balancing nutrition and preventing spoilage. Some plants are harvested while still wet, then dried on exposed rocks before being tucked away. Others are stored immediately in the cooler, shaded depths of rock crevices. It’s not just instinct — it’s alpine logistics.

Studies have observed pikas leaping across boulders and climbing steep slopes to reach preferred plants, even when easier options were nearby. The choices aren’t random. They’re tactical.

Toxic Plants as Preservatives

Perhaps the most impressive trick in the pika’s winter playbook is its use of toxins.

Some of the plants that pikas stash in their haypiles are toxic when fresh — often containing compounds like phenolics, which deter herbivores and prevent microbial growth. According to Dearing’s research on plant secondary compounds, pikas appear to deliberately include these plants in their haypiles to help preserve more perishable ones (Dearing et al. 2005).

Over time, the chemical potency in those toxic plants fades, leaving behind a safer, edible cache when food is otherwise scarce. The antimicrobial properties that once made the plants risky now make them essential. In effect, the pika has created a natural food preservative system by, sort of like making sauerkraut, but by using the toxins in other plants – all with no formal training in pharmacology.

This behavior reflects what scientists consider one of the most advanced examples of non-human pharmacological knowledge in the wild. Unlike chimpanzees or parrots that occasionally self-medicate, the collared pika builds its entire winter survival around this biochemical foresight.

Nature’s Most Unlikely Pharmacist

Arizona State University professor emeritus Dr. Andrew Smith, a long-time authority on pika behavior and ecology, has described this ability to manage plant toxins as one of the most extraordinary examples of mammalian foraging strategy.

In controlled studies, researchers have offered pikas a range of plants. The animals repeatedly chose species high in chemical defenses for long-term storage — not for immediate eating. Their choices align with degradation timelines, essentially “planning” for the moment when the plant becomes safe and nutritious months later.

The process resembles pharmacognosy — the study of how organisms interact with medicinal plants — but executed entirely through evolved behavior. For the pika, there’s no trial and error.

A Canary on the Mountaintop

Despite their resilience and ingenuity, collared pikas are increasingly vulnerable to the forces reshaping their mountain homes. Climate change poses a direct threat to nearly every part of their survival routine.

Collared pikas depend on cold, stable, high-altitude environments. Their compact bodies and thick fur make them heat-sensitive, and they rely on snowpack as insulation during winter. When summers grow too warm, pikas are forced to retreat to cooler spots, losing valuable foraging hours. If temperatures rise above 77 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius), they die of heat exposure. When winters are too dry or erratic, such as this past winter in Alaska (2024/2025) the lack of snow exposes their haypiles to freezing temperatures or spoilage.

Dr. Chris Ray, an ecologist at the University of Colorado Boulder, has spent over two decades tracking pika populations across the western U.S. Her work shows that these animals are already disappearing from the lower edges of their historical range — not because they’re being hunted or outcompeted, but because their habitats are warming out from under them.

Warming temperatures aren’t just altering the landscape; they’re changing the chemistry of the plants pikas depend on. As alpine temperatures climb, the timing of plant growth and bloom shifts—affecting when key secondary compounds like alkaloids and phenolics peak. These compounds are critical to the pika’s preservation strategy, and their delicate timing has evolved to match the narrow window of alpine summer.

The result is a disruption in the chemical architecture of the haypile. Plants that once aged into safe, nutritious food may now spoil or remain too toxic to eat. Meanwhile, warming enables lower-elevation shrubs and trees to encroach on alpine meadows, displacing the diverse herbaceous plants that pikas rely on. With both the availability and chemistry of their forage changing, pikas are losing control over a finely tuned survival system millions of years in the making.

Because of their sensitivity to temperature, collared pikas are considered a sentinel species — a kind of living indicator for the health of alpine ecosystems. When pikas disappear, it’s a signal that the mountaintop itself is in trouble.

The Hidden Genius in the Rocks

To spot a collared pika in the wild, you need patience, luck, and a good ear. You’ll hear it before you see it — a sharp “eep!” echoing off the rocks like a tiny alarm. Wait long enough, and you might catch a blur of gray fur dashing between stones, a bouquet of wildflowers clutched in its mouth.

It doesn’t look like a chemist. Or an ecologist. Or a master planner.

But it is.

In its silent, stubborn way, the collared pika is telling a story — about survival, ingenuity, and the intricate threads that connect behavior, landscape, and time.

It’s a story we’d be wise to listen to.