Pika ID help required

Saw this pika in Ladakh in May 2019. Would be grateful if someone could identify the exact species.

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Bsane279

5 Comments

  • Jon Hall

    Where were you exactly? What altitude? The common Pikas in Hemis for instance are Large-eared I believe. We saw Nubra there too in different habitat (around bushes) while the Large eared were in among the rocks. But they are extremely hard to tell apart and location and habitat is an important factor in the ID

  • Bsane279

    Hey Jon, my apologies but I cannot remember the exact location…it’s somewhere on the way to the Hemis monastery, where we’d stopped to get shots of birds.
    The habitat was completely rocky boulders and plains, with no bushes or any other large vegetation.
    Not an expert in this at all but I feel it might not be a Nubra pika, firstly due to the habitat as you pointed out and secondly because the Nubra pika has more of a rufous/brownish colouration.

  • Daksh N

    I believe its a Ladakh pika because of the colouration of the ears

  • Jon Hall

    Thanks. In that case I would put it down as Large-eared. It looks very similar to the pics I have of that species which I had confirmed by the world’s leading pika expert.

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