Cauga una?

First, some unintentional humour - Someone wrote, about the Eagle flooding, that we won't have a fiasco like Louisiana, because our state isn't crazy.

What planet do they live on? :)

Here's the answer to last week's critters! Arctic Ground Squirrel (Spermophilus parryii), or Cikiq in yup'ik, and apparently Siksrik in Inupiaq.

I know in written yup'ik (which is a whole different beast) there's a bunch of squiggles and archy things that you can't type (Like an arch that goes over ugasek or taugam), but inupiaq there's a lot more of those marks. I wonder how they manage typing it? It probably isn't a big issue - like yugcetun, the writing system is pretty new, and many speakers are probably illiterate in it.

Anyhow, here's cikiq again!
I love them. I wish Fairbanks had them. Brian Barns, at IAB (my department) has a colony of them for research, but that's not the same.

Here's a tricky one!
It's an animal I like a lot. It's definitely not found in Alaska - This one was caught in the badlands of Utah, but you could find it's brothers anywhere from Mexico to southern Washington, as well as parts of Alberta and Sasquatch-wan. They can grow fairly large (for a rodent) but are light - 60ish grams, or .1 lbs. The green marker on it's tail is our addition - it's so we know we've trapped it already, if we re-trap it.
Do you know what these little long-tailed beasts are?