George Montgomery, Jr., age 15, of Lilesville, North Carolina, for his question:
What are the habits of the groundhog?
There is nothing hoggish about him, though he does spend much of the day down in his underground burrow. What's more, the groundhog, alias the woodchuck, does not waste his time chucking wood. The Algonquin Indians called him by a name that sounded something like "wejack" and the early settlers remodeled this to "woodshock" and later to "woodchuck." Actually, he is a rather slow character who comes above ground to lunch on grassy vegetation and sometimes spends a lazy hour or so basking in the afternoon sunshine.
The groundhog is one of the largest of the ground squirrels, a member of the genus marmota. He has various marmot cousins living in Asia and parts of Europe and a remarkable first cousin who enjoys life in the Rockies, from New Mexico to Alaska: This colorful character is known as the "whistler" because he utters a piercing whistle to warn his neighboring kinfold of approaching visitors. His coarse thick coat is grizzled with black and white, nicely set off with black feet, a black face and attractive white marks on his cheeks and forehead.
All marmots inhabit complex systems of underground burrows with storage and sleeping chambers, plus up to 20 exits. The slow, rather timid creatures like to have plenty of getaway holes concealed in piles of rock or fallen logs. When on the surface, their leisurely dining may be disturbed by a hungry predator and it's nice to have a handy escape hatch within easy scampering distance.
Most marmots enjoy each other's company and live in colonies, where the ground is riddled with their underground burrows. The groundhog marmot of eastern North America is an exception. He prefers a solitary life, though the mother tends her brood until they can fend for themselves. The five to ten pound mother gives birth to a litter of two to eight babes weighing about one ounce apiece. At birth they are blind, bare and totally helpless. After a month or so, they take their first look around at their underground nursery. Soon after this, they are coaxed to substitute crunchy vegetation for their mother's milk and by late summer they are ready to embark on their separate lives of more or less solitude.
The adult woodchuck is a chubby, thick set fellow with a rabbity face and small round ears. His bulky body may be 27 inches long, plus a six inch brushy tail. His thick coarse coat is a grizzled mixture of brownish reds or greys. His legs are rather short and when dining he often sits upright on his rump, using his hands to feed grassy twigs into his mouth. As a rule, he comes up to dine in the evening and spends most of his time dozing below. When it comes to dozing, the woodchuck is a champion. In late summer he eats extra food and builds his weight to about ten pounds. When daytime temperatures drop below 60 degrees, he curls up in one of his underground chambers and sinks into the deep coma of true hibernation.
February 2 is known throughout the land as Groundhog Day and the groundhog is expected to appear above ground to survey the weather. If he sees his shadow, so they say, he goes back down for another six weeks of sleep. This lovely legend may not be exactly true. However, the woodchuck does wake up from his deep winter sleep a few times usually to go to the bathroom and stretch a few of his lazy muscles.