Olympic marmot is a rodent in the squirrel family, Sciuridae; it occurs only in the U S state of Washington, on the middle elevations of the Olympic Peninsula.
| FactSnippet No. 1,154,462 |
16 Facts About Olympic marmot
2.
The coat color changes with the season and with age, but an adult Olympic marmot's coat is brown all over with small whiter areas for most of the year.
| FactSnippet No. 1,154,463 |
3.
The Olympic marmot is rated a species of the least concern on the IUCN Red List.
| FactSnippet No. 1,154,464 |
4.
Burrows of this Olympic marmot are made in colonies, which are found in various mountain locations and differ in size.
| FactSnippet No. 1,154,465 |
5.
The Olympic marmot is thought to have originated during the last glacial period as an isolated relict population of the hoary marmot in the Pleistocene ice-free refugia.
| FactSnippet No. 1,154,466 |
6.
Olympic marmot deviates from the typical Petromarmota marmots in the shape and large size of its mandible, in differences of the dorsal region, and having 40 chromosomes instead of 42, all of which are characteristics that resemble the subgenus Marmota.
| FactSnippet No. 1,154,467 |
7.
The Olympic marmot is about the size of a domestic cat; adults typically weigh from 2.
| FactSnippet No. 1,154,468 |
8.
The Olympic marmot's muzzle is almost always white, with a white band in front of the eyes.
| FactSnippet No. 1,154,469 |
9.
The Vancouver Island Olympic marmot has a similar coat color—chocolate brown with white patches.
| FactSnippet No. 1,154,470 |
10.
The Olympic marmot is well-adapted to its generally cold natural habitat, where there is snowfall almost every month of the year on the mountain slopes and barren grasslands.
| FactSnippet No. 1,154,471 |
11.
Olympic marmot's predators are mostly terrestrial mammals such as coyotes, cougars, and bobcats; however, it is preyed on by avian raptors such as golden eagles.
| FactSnippet No. 1,154,472 |
12.
An additional behavior that takes place when a Olympic marmot becomes nervous or bothered by a predator is that it retracts its top lip to show its upper incisors.
| FactSnippet No. 1,154,473 |
13.
Parasites of the Olympic marmot include the cestode Diandrya composita, and fleas of the genus Oropsylla.
| FactSnippet No. 1,154,474 |
14.
Olympic marmot is the second-rarest North American marmot, behind the critically endangered Vancouver Island marmot.
| FactSnippet No. 1,154,475 |
15.
The Olympic marmot has been considered a species of least concern on the IUCN Red List since first being included in 1996.
| FactSnippet No. 1,154,476 |
16.
State law declares that the Olympic marmot is a protected wildlife species and cannot be hunted.
| FactSnippet No. 1,154,477 |