Name: Turuchan pika (Ochotona turuchanensis)
Where it lives: Mountains of central Siberia
What it eats: Plants and vegetation, including nettles
Why it’s awesome: Central Siberia may be a harsh and challenging environment, but that doesn’t stop the Turuchan pika from having fun. These small, fluffy mammals are known for their love of all types of play — from swinging from branches to chasing each other.
Turuchan pikas are rock-dwelling creatures that live in areas of the Central Siberian Plateau, a mountainous region in central Russia. Because they live in such a specific, isolated region, not much is known about them — but they are thought to be a subspecies of the northern pika (Ochotona hyperborea) found across Northern Asia. They grow up to 7.8 inches (20 centimeters) long and are covered in dense, dark fur, which helps them survive in cold habitats and provides camouflage against predators in the rocky terrain. They have strong hind legs, making them well-adapted for climbing, jumping and, importantly, playing.
Between 2020 and 2021, Russian researchers studied a local population of Turuchan pikas on the Primorsky Mountain Ridge in the Irkutsk region to find out how and why they play. They observed the animals jumping up and grabbing branches with their teeth, as well as swinging from bushes and shrubs and rolling from side to side on their backs.
Related: Cats are better at word association than human babies are, study finds
In one moment documented by the biologists, an adult female and an adult male took turns hiding behind rocks and then jumping out at one another. Others scampered after each other in a game of chase.
The pikas also engaged in an activity researchers nicknamed “jerk-uplifting.” They suddenly jumped onto their hind legs, threw their heads back and stretched their front legs forward, often with leaves or lichen in their mouths. It’s not known exactly why they did this, but they seemed to be playing with their food before eating it.
Intriguingly, scientists spotted both young and adult Turuchan pikas playing — suggesting it’s an activity not just enjoyed by juveniles.
Although wild animals sometimes appear to play while engaging in survival behaviors — like finding food, mating or keeping a lookout for predators — the pikas’ games seemed to be purely social. In other words, they played just for fun.
Researchers say this is the first time that any animal from the Lagomorpha order (which includes rabbits and hares) has been observed engaging in all three types of play behavior (locomotor, object and social) in the wild. Locomotor play is when individuals play actively in their environment, object play is when they interact with items like twigs or rocks, and social play is where they play with each other. “The discovered phenomenon undoubtedly requires further research,” researchers wrote in the Zoological Journal.
