Wharton's pika
The giant pika or Wharton's pika (Ochotona whartoni ) is an extinct mammal species in the family Ochotonidae. It lived during the Pleistocene and early Holocene in northern parts of North America (Alaska, US and Canada). Very similar forms have also been found also in Siberia.
The giant pika has been found in Alaska (United States), Yukon (O. whartoni and O cf. whartoni, large number of locations), Alberta and Ontario (Canada). A close relative O. whartoni (O. cf. whartoni ) is also known from Eastern Siberia and Kolyma.
The ancestors of these pikas migrated from Eurasia to North America during the Early Pleistocene via the Bering Land Bridge, along with another group of small pikas close to the "O. pusilla group". This migration was separate from that of O. spanglei, which entered North America approximately three million earlier at the Miocene-Pliocene boundary.
The giant pika is much larger than other North American pikas, but is of a similar size to the extinct early and middle Pleistocene O. complicidens and extant O. koslowi (Koslov's pika), both from China, and may belong to one of them. Unlike the American pika (O. princeps ), which inhabits scree slopes, the giant pika's habitat was largely tundra and steppe, similar to Eurasian pikas.
