Range/Habitat: Eastern central Alaska, British Columbia, most of southern Canada, northern Idaho, eastern Kansas, northeast North Dakota; in the East, south to Virginia, and northern Alabama.

Description: The sun-loving groundhog is active by day, especially in early morning and late afternoon. A good swimmer and climber, it will go up a tree to escape an enemy or obtain a vantage point but never travels far from its den.

Adaptations: Its burrow, 8-12 inches wide, thirty feet long and up to five feet deep, has one or more tunnels terminating in a chamber containing a large grass nest and is used by other mammals, including cottontail rabbits, opossums, raccoons, skunks, and foxes which enlarge it of uses as a nursery den. If alarmed, the groundhog often gives a loud sharp whistle, then softer ones as it runs for its burrow from which it then peeks out. When angered, it chatters its teeth, and it can hiss, squeal, and growl. In late summer or early fall, it puts on a heavy layer of fat, which sustains it through hibernation. It digs a winter burrow with a hibernation chamber where it curls up in a ball on a mat of grasses. Body temperature falls from almost 97 degrees to less than 40 degrees, breathing slows to once every 6 minutes, and heartbeat drops from over 100 beats per minute to 4.

Courtship/Gestation/Birth:

Diet: Green vegetation such as grasses, clover, alfalfa, plantain, and corn; can be found in people�s gardens munching on greens.

Remarks: Groundhog�s Day is February 2 of each year, when, according to rural American tradition, the groundhog leaves the burrow where it has been hibernating to discover whether cold winter weather will continue. If the groundhog cannot see its shadow, it remains above ground ending its hibernation, but if its shadow is visible (that is, if the sun is shining), six more weeks of cold weather will ensue, and the animal returns to its burrow.
Groundhogs are beneficial in moderate numbers, for their defecation inside the burrow, in a special excrement chamber separate from the nesting chamber fertilizes the earth, and their digging loosens and aerates the soil, letting in moisture and organic matter while bringing up subsoil for transformation into topsoil (in New York State they turn over an estimated 1,600,000 tons of soil each year).
The common name comes from a Cree Indian word, �wuchak,� used to identify several different animals of similar size and color. This is where the name �Woodchuck� originated. They are also known as �Whistle Pigs� or �Marmots.�

Card by Henson Robinson Zoo Education Department.

Groundhog Exhibit

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