Time to celebrate, because it's Groundhog Day! At least, if you live where they have groundhogs. In such places, the groundhog, also known as the Woodchuck or the Marmot, is reputed to poke its head out of its burrow and if it sees its shadow, goes back to sleep because there will be 6 more weeks of winter.
Not only do we lack groundhogs in the Chihuahuan Desert, we almost
don't have winter. But, things weren't always this way. The western equivalent
of the groundhog is the Yellow-bellied Marmot, and it doesn't get closer to our
desert than the southern end of the Rockies in northern New Mexico. Back in the Ice
Ages, however, when much of what is now desert did have a real winter, marmots came far
south, and their remains are common in many caves in the northern part of the desert.
When winter left, the marmot left, too. Alas, this mammal was out of a job in our
desert!
Listen to the Audio (mp3 format) as recorded by KTEP, Public Radio for the Southwest.
Contributor: Arthur H. Harris, Laboratory for Environmental Biology, University of Texas at El Paso.
Desert Diary is a joint production of the Centennial Museum and KTEP National Public Radio at the University of Texas at El Paso.
A Yellow-bellied Marmot (after Howell, 1915).
Howell, A. H. 1915. Revision of the American Marmots. North American Fauna No. 37:1-80, Pls. I-XV.