Marmot
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Marmot Fossil range: Late Miocene - Recent |
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Yellow-bellied Marmot in Yosemite National Park
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Scientific classification | ||||||||||||||||
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Marmots are small mammals, that form the genus Marmota.
They are rodents that belong to the group of ground squirrels. Most of them live in the mountains, like the Sierra Nevada, or the Alps. Marmots make holes in the ground, they live in burrows, underground. They hibernate, that is they sleep through the winter. Marmots are very social animals, they group together easily. They also like to communicate with each other, with whistles, especially when they sense danger.
Many historians suggest that marmots, rather than rats were the carriers of Bubonic Plague epidemics in the Middle Ages.