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Marmot; Fossil range: Late Miocene - Recent
	Yellow-bellied Marmot in Yosemite National Park
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia;
Phylum:	Chordata;
Class:	Mammalia;
Order:	Rodentia;
Family:	Sciuridae;
Subfamily:	Xerinae;
Tribe:	Marmotini;
Genus:	Marmota; Blumenbach, 1779
Species
	Marmota baibacina; Marmota bobak; Marmota broweri; Marmota caligata; Marmota camtschatica; Marmota caudata; Marmota flaviventris; Marmota himalayana; Marmota marmota; Marmota menzbieri; Marmota monax; Marmota olympus; Marmota sibirica; Marmota vancouverensis

For other uses, see Marmot (disambiguation).

Marmots are members of the genus Marmota, in the rodent family Sciuridae (squirrels).

Marmots are generally large ground squirrels. Those most often referred to as marmots tend to live in mountainous areas such as the Alps, northern Apennines, Carpathians, Tatra, and Pyrenees in Europe, the Rockies, the Black Hills and the Sierra Nevada in the United States, Northern Canada, Deosai plateau in Pakistan and Ladakh in Indian occupied Kashmir. However, the groundhog is also properly called a marmot, while the similarly-sized but more social prairie dog is not classified in the genus Marmota but in the related genus Cynomys.

Marmots typically live in burrows (often within rockpiles, particularly in the case of the Yellow-bellied Marmot), and hibernate there through the winter. Most marmots are highly social, and use loud whistles to communicate with one another, especially when alarmed.

Marmots mainly eat greens. They eat many types of grasses, berries, lichens, mosses, roots and flowers.

[edit] Species

The following is a list of all Marmota species recognized by Thorington and Hoffman (2005). They divide marmots into two subgenera.

Genus Marmota - marmots
- Subgenus Marmota
  - Alpine Marmot Marmota marmota found only in Europe in the Alps, northern Apennines in Italy, Carpathians, Tatra, and reintroduced in the Pyrenees.
  - Gray Marmot or Altai Marmot Marmota baibacina Siberia
  - Bobak Marmot Marmota bobak Central Europe to Central Asia
  - Alaska Marmot, Brower's Marmot or Brooks Range Marmot Marmota broweri Alaska
  - Black-capped Marmot Marmota camtschatica Eastern Siberia
  - Long-tailed Marmot, Golden Marmot or Red Marmot Marmota caudata Central Asia
  - Himalayan Marmot or Tibetan Snow Pig Marmota himalayana Himalaya
  - Menzbier's Marmot Marmota menzbieri Central Asia
  - Woodchuck, Groundhog, or Whistlepig Marmota monax North America
  - Tarbagan Marmot, Mongolian Marmot or Tarvaga Marmota sibirica, Siberia
- Subgenus Petromarmota
  - Hoary Marmot Marmota caligata Northwestern North America
  - Yellow-bellied Marmot Marmota flaviventris South western Canada, Western United States
  - Olympic Marmot Marmota olympus Olympic Peninsula, Washington, USA
  - Vancouver Island Marmot Marmota vancouverensis Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada

[edit] History and etymology

Marmots have been known since antiquity. Research by the French ethnologist Michel Peissel makes a claim that the story of 'Gold-digging ants' reported by the Greek historian Herodotus, who lived in the 5th century BC, was founded on the golden Himalayan Marmot of the Deosai plateau and the habit of local tribes such as the Minaro to collect the gold dust excavated from their burrows.^[1]

The etymology of the term "marmot" is uncertain. It may have arisen from the Gallo-Romance prefix marm-, meaning to mumble or murmur (an onomatopoeia). Another possible origin is post-classical Latin, mus montanus, meaning "mountain mouse".^[2]

[edit] Examples of species

A Yellow-bellied Marmot near Princeton, British Columbia	Groundhog, Marmota monax	A Hoary Marmot in Mt. Rainier National Park	Alpine Marmot in the Massif des Écrins, southern France.
Drawing of Bobak Marmot	Olympic Marmot	Video of adult marmot whistling in Gothic, Colorado, USA

[edit] References

^ Peissel, Michel. "The Ants' Gold: The Discovery of the Greek El Dorado in the Himalayas". Collins, 1984. ISBN 978-0002725149.
^ "Marmot". Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. 2nd ed. 1989.

Conesa, J., Heffner, R. S. and Heffner, H. E. (1991). Hearing in large rodents: Groundhogs Marmota monax. Poster/abstract presented at the 14th midwinter meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology (ARO).
Conesa, J., Koay, G. and Heffner, R. S. (1992). Sound localization in a large rodent, Marmota monax. Abstract in the 15th midwinter meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology (ARO).
Thorington, R. W. Jr. and R. S. Hoffman. 2005. Family Sciuridae. Pp. 754-818 in Mammal Species of the World a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference. D. E. Wilson and D. M. Reeder eds. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Marmot

[0] Peissel, Michel. "The Ants' Gold: The Discovery of the Greek El Dorado in the Himalayas". Collins, 1984. ISBN 978-0002725149.

[1] "Marmot". Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. 2nd ed. 1989.

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Contents

[edit] Species

[edit] History and etymology

[edit] Examples of species

[edit] References

[edit] External links