Do you live in a neighborhood in a town? Prairie dogs do. Their towns are made up of acres of underground tunnels. These towns are broken up into smaller neighborhoods called wards. Family groups within each ward are called coteries. A coterie usually has one male prairie dog, three or four females and their young up to age one.

Prairie dog tunnels are somewhat like your own house. Prairie dogs use them to stay out of the weather and they build several nesting chambers off of the tunnels where they can sleep. They even build a chamber that is a bathroom! Sometimes prairie dog tunnels come in handy for other animals as well. Animals like the black-footed ferret, the prairie rattlesnake and the burrowing owl use tunnels already created by prairie dogs for their own homes.

Prairie dogs “mow” their lawns. Almost all of what they eat is plants and grasses, although they will occasionally eat grasshoppers or other insects. If the plants around their burrow are not ones they find tasty, they will still nip them off with their teeth to keep them short. This is so the prairie dogs can see any predators, such as coyotes, ferrets, badgers, rattlesnakes or hawks, approaching.

Prairie dogs usually form a mound around the entrance to their burrow. The mound not only prevents the burrow from flooding, it also provides a high place for one of the prairie dogs to keep watch. If this lookout sees a predator coming, it sounds a special call. Prairie dogs in the neighborhood then take cover in their burrows until the danger has passed. Prairie dogs also have a call that means “all clear” and several other types of sounds that they use to communicate.

Though they are not on the endangered species list, the population of prairie dogs in the nation has dropped 98 percent since the first European settlers came to America.