Marmots

The most familiar marmot to most North Americans is the woodchuck or groundhog (Marmota monax), a widespread and common species of open woodlands, prairies, roadsides, and the edges of cultivated fields. The wood-chuck is a relatively large, reddish or brownish, black-footed marmot, with animals typically weighing about 7-13 lb (3-6 kg), although one captive animal achieved a most-fatty weight of 37 lb (17 kg) in the late autumn. Wood-chucks dig their burrow complexes in well-drained soil, generally on the highest ground available to them.

The hoary marmot (M. caligata) is a species of alpine tundra and open montane forests of the mountains of northwestern North America, also occurring in the northern tundra of Alaska, Yukon, and the western Northwest Territories. There are various subspecies of hoary marmots, including the small dark-brown Vancouver Island marmot (M. c. vancouverensis), the Olympic marmot (M. c. olympus)of northwestern Washington state, and the Kamchatkan marmot (M. c. camtscharica) of the mountains of far-eastern Siberia.

The yellow-bellied marmot (M. flaviventris) is a yellow-brown species of alpine and open montane habitats in the western United States.