Interesting groundhog facts: 10 facts about groundhogs

10 facts about groundhogs

Also known as woodchucks, groundhogs are true hibernators—going into a dormant state from late fall until late winter or early spring. But they wake up in time to mate and start families, like these groundhogs resting on a log.

Photograph by W. Perry Conway, Corbis

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Each year groundhogs enjoy 15 minutes of fame—and then most people proceed to forget about them completely. Held every year on February 2, Groundhog Day is a unique U.S. celebration in which people turn to these mammals to predict the weather: If the groundhog sees its shadow on that day, lore has it there will be six more weeks of winter. But what else is there to know about these annual celebrities? Here are some little-known facts.

They’re related to squirrels.

Groundhogs (Marmota monax) are a type of rodent known as a marmot, and marmots are closely related to squirrels. “They are giant ground squirrels is what they are,” says Richard Thorington, curator of mammals at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

What’s more, groundhogs have an extensive range and can be found all over North America.

“[Groundhogs are] the most widely distributed marmot of all of them, [with a range stretching] as far south as northern Alabama to northern Canada—and some are even found in Alaska,” says Stam Zervanos, retired professor of biology at Pennsylvania State University in Reading, who’s conducted extensive research on groundhogs.

They’re filling in for hedgehogs.

While the reported origins of Groundhog Day are many, the concept is thought to be linked to the Germanic tradition of Candlemas Day, a Christian feast day. According to the folklore, a sunny Candlemas Day means a longer winter. In Europe, however, the animal used was generally a hedgehog or a badger. How it wound up being the groundhog’s responsibility in the U. S. may have been a bit of a fluke.

“When the Europeans came over here, they didn’t have any hedgehogs or badgers to lay the blame on, so I think the groundhog got it by being here and being a good size,” speculates Thorington. “He became the one to prophesize whether winter would come or not.”

There’s a movement to replace them with robots.

Some animal rights groups have long taken issue with Groundhog Day, arguing that these shy animals should not be put on display or interrupted from their natural hibernation cycle. Now, PETA is arguing to replace groundhogs with robot groundhogs equipped with artificial intelligence that detects shadows.

‘Woodchuck’ has nothing to do with wood.

Groundhogs have many colorful names, including “whistle-pig” for their tendency to emit short, high-pitched whistles. They’re also known as land beavers, but their most famous nickname is woodchuck.

Surprisingly, the name woodchuck doesn’t have anything to do with wood. It’s thought to be a corruption of the Native American words wejack, woodshaw, or woodchoock. It may have its roots in the Algonquian (or perhaps Narragansett) name for the animal: wuchak.

Other sources claim it’s a bastardization of the Cree word otchek for “fisher” or the Ojibwe ojiig, also for “fisher” or “marten,” which Europeans appropriated and misapplied to the groundhog.

So how much wood could a woodchuck chuck? None, apparently.

They build impressive homes.

A groundhog’s burrow can be anywhere from eight to 66 feet long, with multiple exits and a number of chambers.

There can be several levels to their burrows, says Zervanos. “They have a burrow for hibernating, and then they have another section of the burrow that’s more like their summer home where they can come out more easily.”

Their burrows even have separate rooms for defecation—otherwise known as bathrooms.

In some cases, groundhogs have more than one residence and move from one burrow to another.

Farmers consider them pests.

Those impressive tunneling skills make for great burrows, but they can also mean big headaches for those who work in agriculture.

“They dig fairly extensive burrows, and tractors can break an axle [driving over them],” says Zervanos.

And since the animals are herbivores—and prefer tender, young greens—they can make nuisances of themselves by raiding crops.

Soybeans, corn, family gardens—it’s all a banquet in the eyes of a groundhog. But some can be more discerning.

“They’re selective,” says the Smithsonian’s Thorington. “They’ll go for your best cabbages and best foods that you have out there.”

They’re loners.

Unlike some of their cousins, such as prairie dogs, groundhogs are basically loners, seeking out their own kind only to mate. (See “Video: Why do prairie dogs do ‘the wave?’”)

“They’re pretty solitary for most of the year, so the male has no clue where the female is most of the year except when they’re ready to mate,” says Penn State’s Zervanos.

Even their maternal duty to their young is short and sweet.

“The mother nurses the young, and then shortly after they’re weaned, they tend to go off on their own. [They’re] about as asocial as you can get,” says Thorington.

When they sleep, they really sleep.

Groundhogs are known as “true hibernators,” going into a dormant state—in which their body temperature and heart rate fall dramatically—from late fall until late winter or early spring.

“True hibernators are the ones that can reduce their body temp below 20 degrees Celsius [68 degrees Fahrenheit],” says Zervanos. “Bears, for example, only drop their body temp to 30 degrees from 37 degrees Celsius [86 from 98.7 degrees Fahrenheit].

“Any of the true hibernators can [also] reduce their heart rate down to about five beats a minute, and their body temperature can go as low as [41 degrees Fahrenheit],” he adds.

But Zervanos, who’s studied groundhog hibernation extensively, points out that hibernation isn’t as cut and dried a process as people think.

“Hibernation is not a deep sleep that continues for the entire winter,” explains Zervanos. Instead, groundhogs go through bouts of “torpor,” when their body temperature drops to about five degrees Celsius, he says. They’ll do this for about a week, then wake up for three or four days, then go back into torpor.

“They do this about 12 to 20 times in the hibernation season,” says Zervanos.

But they wake up early for love.

Groundhogs hibernate from late fall for roughly three months, then wake up when it’s still quite cold.

But it turns out they have a very good reason to drag themselves out of bed. There’s evidence that male groundhogs wake up early to get a head start on reproduction.

“The males come out and start to prepare for the mating season,” says Zervanos, which involves surveying their turf and making house-calls to female burrows as early as February.

“Typically, there’s a male that has a territory that includes several female burrows. And there’s some competition for that territory,” he explains. “They try to defend that territory, and they go from burrow to burrow to find out if that female is still there.”

Having determined where his potential mates are, the male then returns to his burrow to sleep for another month or so until early March when it’s time to mate.

They have great timing.

Groundhogs display an uncanny knack for good timing.

Groundhogs have to know just when to emerge from hibernation to mate so that their offspring will have the best chance of survival.

“Most matings happen in a ten-day period in early March,” says Zervanos. “If [the offspring] are born too late, they can’t get enough weight for winter, and if they’re born too early, the female doesn’t have enough food to feed them.”

In other words, the window of opportunity is very small and the wily woodchuck has to get it just right. With those instincts, perhaps it’s appropriate to entrust predictions for the duration of winter to the humble groundhogs.

Follow Stefan Sirucek on Twitter.

This story has been updated. It was originally published on January 31, 2014.

The National Wildlife Federation Blog

A woodchuck, or groundhog, during the warm months of grassy abundance.

The groundhog, also known as the woodchuck or the mouse bear (because it looks like a miniature bear when sitting upright), first won its reputation as a weather prognosticator in 1886, when the editor of western Pennsylvania’s Punxsutawney Spirit newspaper, one Clymer Freas, published a report that local groundhogs had not seen their shadows that day, signaling an early spring.

This story begat Punxsutawney Phil, the legendary woodchuck weathercreature, which begat Ground Hog Day and the familiar idea that Phil (and his namesake successors down through the years) can predict the perpetuation of winter.

It is likely that the story of Phil is based on European beliefs that badgers and hedgehogs can provide signals about the future; lacking those species in his area, old Clymer substituted the local animal that most resembles a badger or a hedgehog.

But the groundhog is much more than a weather rodent. It’s also a real animal with a real life.

Here are 10 things you may not know about this roly-poly rodent:

1. Groundhogs are among the few animals that are true hibernators, fattening up in the warm seasons and snoozing for most of three months during the chill times.
2. While hibernating, a woodchuck’s body temperature can drop from about 99 degrees to as low as 37 (Humans go into mild hypothermia when their body temperature drops a mere 3 degrees, lose consciousness at 82 degrees and face death below 70 degrees).
3. The  heart rate of a hibernating woodchuck slows from about 80 beats per minute to 5.
4. Breathing slows from around 16 breaths per minute to as few as 2.
5. During hibernation—150 days without eating—a woodchuck will lose no more than a fourth of its body weight thanks to all the energy saved by the lower metabolism.
6. During warm seasons, a groundhog may pack in more than a pound of vegetation at one sitting, which is much like a 150-pound man scarfing down a 15-pound steak.
7. To accommodate its bodacious appetite, woodchucks grow upper and lower incisors that can withstand wear and tear because they grow about a sixteenth of an inch each week.
8. If properly aligned, woodchuck upper and lower incisors grind away at each other with every bite, keeping suitably short; when not in good order, they may miss one another and just keep growing until they look like the tusks on a wild boar; if too long, a woodchuck’s upper incisors can impale the lower jaw, with fatal results.
9. Woodchuck burrows, which the animals dig as much as 6 feet deep, can meander underground for 20 feet or more, usually with two entrances but in some cases with nearly a dozen.
10. Burrows provide groundhogs with their chief means of evading enemies, because the rotund little guys (just before hibernation, a hefty woodchuck may tip the scales at 14 pounds) are too slow to escape most predators in a dead heat: the rodents have a top speed of only 8 mph, while a hungry fox may hit 25 mph.

Bonus Fact: Although groundhogs may not be the best weather predictors, they do in fact emerge from dens in early February. This is the practice of males as they rouse themselves to wander around their 2- to 3-acre territories in search of burrows belonging to females, which the males will enter and where they may spend the night. Research suggests that no mating takes place at this time; the visits probably just let the animals get to know one another so that they can get right down to the business of breeding when they emerge for good in March. Outside of the mating season, woodchucks are solitary, except for females with young, which usually are born in early April.

the most interesting facts about marmots

Recently, Groundhog Day was celebrated in the USA. Every year on February 2, this animal becomes the most popular mammal throughout America and even beyond its borders. But how much do we know about the groundhog? There are some interesting facts on this list that you can successfully screw into the conversation on February 2, 2018. For the first time this holiday was recognized as a traditional date in 1887, but it gained its special popularity after the appearance on the screens of the film of the same name with Bill Murray in the lead roles.

25.
In the United States, the groundhog has many other names and nicknames that refer to this rodent. His names are chick, ground pig, whistler pig, whistler, tree chick, tree shock, Canada marmot, and red monk.

Photo: wikipedia

24.
In the USA and Canada, the marmot is one of the most common animals. These rodents can be found from the north of Alaska to the southern reaches of Georgia.

Photo: wikipedia

23.
According to popular beliefs, if it is cloudy outside on Groundhog Day, the animal comes out of its hole without fear, and this means that spring will come earlier. If on this day the weather is sunny, and the groundhog sees his shadow on the ground, he can hurry back to the hole out of fear. This means that winter will be delayed for another 6 weeks.

Photo: pixabay.com

22.
The marmot usually grows to 40-65 cm in length, including the tail, and weighs between 2 and 4 kg. But in natural areas, where there are fewer predators and more food, they can grow up to 80 cm and weigh up to 14 kg.

Photo: wikimedia

21.
Marmots are often hunted with guns, but they are also favorite prey for wolves, cougars, coyotes, foxes, bears, eagles and dogs. However, the excellent reproductive ability of marmots helps this species perfectly. That is why they are numerous, despite the huge number of threats.

Photo: flickr.com/photos/usfwsmidwest/

20
Punxsutawney Phil (Phil) – the most famous groundhog in America. Marmots of this particular litter traditionally predict the onset of spring in the town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Phil made 129 in 2016predictions that came true in 39% of cases.

Photo: wikipedia

19.
The tradition of celebrating Groundhog Day first originated in Europe on Candlemas Day. At one time, the Germans, who settled in Pennsylvania in the 1700s, brought this tradition to the United States.

Photo: pixabay

18.
Groundhogs look like fat and clumsy animals, but in fact they are quite active animals, excellent swimmers and even climb trees.

Photo: wikimedia

17.
In case of danger, marmots emit a high frequency whistle to warn their entire colony. That is why in America they are sometimes called whistling pigs.

Photo: wikimedia

16.
Groundhog Day is dedicated to the eponymous feature comedy. Groundhog Day was filmed in 1993 and directed by Harold Ramis. Starring Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell and Chris Elliott (Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Chris Elliott). The film is still very popular and is loved in many parts of the world.

Photo: wikimedia

15.
Groundhogs are real stars and travelers. In 1986, Punxsutawney Phil traveled to Washington to meet US President Ronald Reagan. Another groundhog from this family appeared in 1995 on Oprah Winfrey’s famous talk show.

Photo: Wikimedia

14.
Groundhogs are mostly herbivores but occasionally eat grubs, grasshoppers, insects, snails and other small animals which means they are still omnivores.

Photo: Wikimedia

13.
There are many halls and exits in the groundhog’s hole. Each of them has a different function. Some are intended for winter sleep, while others are more used in summer, for which more convenient entrances and exits are built.

Photo: pexels

12.
The Groundhog Day celebration in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania is the largest in the entire state, drawing crowds of 40,000 every year.

Photo: Wikimedia

11.
Marmot burrows helped discover at least one archaeological site, Ufferman in Ohio, where an ancient Indian settlement was found. And although scientists have never carried out full-fledged excavations here, most of the valuable artifacts were discovered thanks to the activity of local marmots digging new holes for themselves.

Photo: flickr.com/photos/qmnonic

10.
One groundhog can move and process 320 kg of soil when it digs its own hole.

Photo: flickr.com/photos/snpphotos

9.
In the wild, groundhogs usually live only 2-3 years, but in captivity they can live up to 14 years.

Photo: flickr.com/photos/gillesgonthier

8.
Groundhogs are clean. This is one of the reasons why they easily resist diseases that periodically destroy a large number of wild animals in their habitat.

Photo: Wikimedia

7.
The total length of marmot burrows can reach up to 15 m, including all passages and branches.

Photo: flickr.com/photos/dougward

6.
Groundhogs need to know exactly when to come out of hibernation to breed. If they miss a short period of time suitable for finding a mate, the cubs may be in danger. If a female groundhog gives birth too early, her children will have nothing to eat, and if she gives birth too late, her offspring will not have time to gain enough weight by winter to survive their first hibernation.

Photo: Wikimedia

5.
Marmots are one of the few animal species that truly hibernate. The true state of diapause means a physiological slowdown in metabolism and a decrease in body temperature below 20 degrees Celsius. For example, hibernating bears lower their body temperature by only 7 degrees Celsius from 37 to 30.

Photo: Wikimedia

4.
Some US states have their own favorite groundhogs for Groundhog Day celebrations, and they don’t pay attention to the predictions of the famous Phil of Pennsylvania. Other weather forecasters include General Beau Lee of Atlanta, Georgia, Sir Walter Wally of North Carolina, and Birmingham Bill of Birmingham, Alabama.

Photo: pixabay

3.
Surkov is used in medical experiments to study chronic hepatitis B and liver cancer. Another animal that has been experimented with and studied for these diseases is the chimpanzee. But since this primate is now on the brink of extinction, groundhogs are the preferred test subjects.

Photo: maxpixel.freegreatpicture.com

2.
During New York City’s annual Groundhog Day celebration on February 2, 2009year in the main city zoo there was a bloody incident. A groundhog named Chuck bit through Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s glove, bleeding the man’s finger as he tried to pull the animal out of its cozy burrow.

Photo: wikimedia

1.
Unlike other representatives of the squirrel family (a detachment of rodents), marmots have a curved spine, similar to the back of a mole. Groundhogs also have unusually dense and hard bones.

Photo: flickr.com/photos/precioustestep/

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Interesting facts about marmots

In this article we will tell you what marmots are, where they live and what their varieties are. We will also consider who the bobak are, what danger they can pose to humans, how Groundhog Day is spent and other interesting facts

pixabay.com

Marmots (or marmots) are relatively large, weighing several kilograms, animals that live in self-constructed burrows. These rodents are distributed in Eurasia and North America.

The ancestral home of marmots is North America, from where they spread through the Bering Strait to Asia, and further to Europe.

Different types of marmots have isolated themselves in different geographical areas and differ from each other in their behavior, but retained their external similarity and the need to fall into hibernation.

All marmots are herbivores, burrowers, warm fur, and almost all live in colonies. There is a difference between flatland marmots (baybaks) and mountain marmots living in the harsh conditions of the Alpine mountains, where summer heat comes late and winter comes early.

Marmots are the heaviest representatives of the squirrel family, depending on the species they weigh from 3 to 7 kilograms. These are large rodents with characteristic short but strong legs, enlarged claws well adapted for digging, a thick body and large heads. The length of the head and body, depending on the species, is from 30 to 60 cm, the length of the tail is from 10 to 25 cm.

There are 15 species of marmots in total, some of them are divided into subspecies. We will now show a photo of the most common types of marmots (the name and habitat of the species are below the picture).

Gray, or Altai, or Mountain Asian marmot: common in Asia (in the mountains of Tien Shan, Altai) | wikimedia.org

Baibak, or babak, or common (steppe) marmot – an inhabitant of the virgin steppes of Eurasia | wikimedia.org

Gray Marmot: Native to North America (Canada, USA) | wikimedia.org

Black-capped, or Kamchatka, or Eastern marmot: lives in Eastern and North-Western Siberia | wikipedia.org

Yellow-bellied marmot: distributed in the western United States and Canada | flickr.com

Himalayan or Tibetan marmot: found in the Himalayan region of India and Pakistan | wikimedia.org

Alpine marmot: common in the highlands of Central and Southern Europe, especially in the Alps | needpix.

com

The woodchuck is the most widespread species of American marmot. Widely distributed in the northeastern and central states of the United States | wikipedia.org

Tarbagan, or Mongolian (Siberian) marmot: lives in Russia (in the steppes of Transbaikalia and Tuva), Mongolia (excluding the south), Northeast China | wikimedia.org

The Olympic groundhog, or the Olympic marmot, is an inhabitant of the Olympic Mountains (Olympic Mountains), located on the peninsula of the same name in western Washington state in the USA | wikimedia.org

Vancouver groundhog: only found on Vancouver Island in Canada, found mainly in the south of the island | wikipedia.org

Groundhogs are good-natured little bellies about the size of a cat. In case of danger, they squeak loudly. However, this is where their charm ends. These animals can be dangerous to humans.

Are marmots harmless?

Not at all, because they kill people – cough them to death. How so? Read on.

The fact is that a species living in Mongolia – the steppe (or common) marmot – is especially susceptible to an infectious lung disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis and better known as bubonic plague.

Groundhogs spread the plague by coughing on neighbors – infecting fleas, rats and eventually humans. All the great epidemics that swept through East Asia and mowed down Europe came from the steppe Mongolian marmots. Historians estimate that the death toll from the plague has exceeded one billion, placing the groundhog second only to the malarial mosquito on the list of mankind’s greatest killers.

When a woodchuck or a human becomes a victim of the plague, the lymph nodes under the armpits and in the groin blacken and swell (such ulcers are called “buboes”, from the Greek boubon, “groin”, hence the word “bubonic”). The Mongol will never touch the groundhog’s armpits, because “the soul of a dead hunter hides there.”

Other parts of the marmot are considered a delicacy in Mongolia. Local hunters perform whole rituals before sneaking up on their prey: they put on fake rabbit ears, dance and wave their yak tail. The caught marmot is roasted whole over hot stones.

Pandemic of bubonic plague of ardor, of course, is a very long time ago, but this disease does not leave us to this day – the last serious outbreak occurred in India in 1994. Plague is one of three diseases on the U.S. list of diseases requiring mandatory quarantine (the other two are yellow fever and cholera).

Baibak

Common (steppe) marmot or marmot is widespread in our area. It is farmed for the sake of warm and light fur. Its meat is edible, and its fat has been used in technology and folk medicine (for example, as a healing ointment for rheumatism).

Baibak is practically harmless for agriculture – it rarely touches cultivated plants; occasionally eats alfalfa and sunflower. In gardens bred in marmot colonies, they sometimes eat cabbage and aerial parts of carrots.

Baibak is a popular object of special hunting – varminting , in which shooting is carried out from a long distance from a special weapon. American marmots are also a popular target for varminting.

For varminting, rifled weapons of special types are used, with a weighted barrel, equipped with powerful optics of ten times or more magnification. The shot is fired at the maximum distance from the target, which must be relatively stationary.

Groundhog’s manner of standing for hours as a “candle” at the hole, surveying the surroundings, makes it possible to make an aimed shot, but only at the maximum distance: the groundhog is shy and in case of alarm it quickly hides in the hole. Moreover, the animal is extremely strong on the wound, that is, if it is damaged in any part of the body, except for the head (no larger than a cognac glass), it manages to hide. And although the wounded animals often manage to go into the hole, they die there.

Young boba | wikimedia.org

Adult bobbin | wikimedia.org

Marmots near the village of Gerasimovka (Lugansk region, Ukraine), early summer 2009 | wikipedia.org

Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day (Groundhog Day) is a traditional holiday in the United States and Canada, celebrated annually on February 2nd. It is believed that on this day you need to watch the marmot crawling out of its hole. By his behavior, one can judge the proximity of the onset of spring.

According to legend, if the day is cloudy, the groundhog does not see his shadow and calmly leaves the hole, which means that winter will end soon and spring will be early. If the day is sunny, the groundhog sees his shadow and, frightened by it, hides back into the hole – there will be another six weeks of winter.

In several cities and towns in the US and Canada, festivals dedicated to local meteorological marmots are held on this day, which attract many tourists.

In the USA and Canada, 7 meteorological marmots are best known:

1. Punxsutawney Phil (Punxsutawney Phil) is a marmot living on Turkey Hill in the town of Punxsutawney in Pennsylvania. This is the very first official groundhog meteorologist – since 1987, it was here that a festival began to be held, during which the “keepers” dressed in tuxedos ask Phil a question: does he see his shadow? If the groundhog whispers yes, then the winter will last another six weeks. According to American climatologists, the accuracy of Phil’s predictions is 39%. At the same time, its fans and some holiday researchers claim accuracy from 75% to 90%.

2. Wiarton Willie (Wiarton Willie) is the most famous Canadian groundhog meteorologist from the village of Wiarton in Ontario, in whose honor an annual festival is held.

3. Staten – Island Chuck Staten Island Chuck. Chuck is the official groundhog meteorologist for New York City. He lives in a zoo on Staten Island. Every year on February 2 at 7:30 he gives his forecast. The mayor of the city is present at this ceremony.

4. Shubenacadie Sam (Shubenacadie Sam). Due to Nova Scotia’s Atlantic time zone, this groundhog makes the first Groundhog Day prediction in North America.
5. Balzac Billy (Balzac Billy).
6. Marmot Jimmy (Jimmy the Groundhog).
7. General Beauregard General Beauregard Lee.