Olympic marmot
marmota olympus latin

Olympic marmots are not completely independent from their mothers until they reach 2 years of age.

Olympic marmots also communicate through the sense of smell to mark their territory.

Olympic Marmots are highly social animals and may live in groups of over a dozen animals.

Olympic Marmots identify each other by touching noses and smelling cheeks.

Olympic marmots are readily affected by climate change because of their sensitivity to changed habitats.

Olympic marmots lose 50% of their body mass over the seven to eight months of winter hibernation.

Olympic marmots enter hibernation in September.

Olympic Marmots hibernate from September to May.

Olympic marmots are gregarious burrowing animals.

At these times Olympic marmots can sometimes be found lying on rocks where they sun themselves for warmth, grooming each other, playing, chirping, and feeding together.

These same "yips" are heard when Olympic marmots are play fighting, along with low growls and chattering of teeth.

When Olympic marmots emerge in early May, thick snow cover is still present from the preceding winter, so they are not very active at this time.

Fishercats have been viewed as predators by Olympic marmots when just passing by a colony and elicited alarm calls.

Olympic marmots enter hibernation in September; adults emerge in May and their young in June.

Olympic Marmots are relatively easy to see during the summer months along Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic National Park.

Olympic marmots are native to the Olympic mountains in the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State.

Within the park, Olympic marmots inhabit burrows in lush sub-alpine and alpine meadows, fields, and montane scree slopes.

In common with all other marmots, Olympic marmots use the trill as an alarm call to alert other marmots to predators.

About 90% of Olympic marmots' total habitat is located in Olympic National Park, where they are often sighted, especially on Hurricane Ridge.

Rangers and frequent visitors to the Olympic National Park had noticed that some populations of Olympic marmots had disappeared from their usual habitats.

Hibernating Olympic marmots do not keep food in their burrows; instead, they gain fat before hibernating and can double their body weight to survive eight months without eating.

Females with young have the responsibility to watch out for their young and other relatives near the burrow, and therefore voice the trill more often than other Olympic marmots.

In the 1960s, David Barash conducted a three-year study of Olympic marmots after which he reported that there was an abundance of marmots in the mountains.

Olympic marmots can become more vulnerable to predators when daytime temperatures rise too high for foraging, causing them to forage in the cooler evenings when predators are more difficult to notice.

The Olympic marmot (Marmota olympus) is a rodent in the squirrel family Sciuridae.

Based on genetic analyses, the closest relatives of the Vancouver Island Marmot are the Hoary Marmot (Marmota caligata) and the Olympic Marmot (Marmota olympus).