Marmota monax

The groundhog, also known as the woodchuck, is a rodent of the family Sciuridae, belonging to the group of large ground squirrels known as marmots. A lowland creature of North America, it is found through much of the Eastern United States, across Canada and into Alaska. It was given its scientific name as Mus monax by Carl Linnaeus in 1758, based on a description of the animal by George Edwards, published in 1743.

Marmota monax

Cephas · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
groundhogPBDB
Sits inside
MarmotaPBDB
Diet
granivore, frugivorePBDB, for Sciuridae
Life habit
semifossorialPBDB, for Marmota
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Mass
27 gWikidata

Time the record covers

At least 198 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 210 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.

Pliocene — about 0 of 46 occurrencesPleistocene — about 34 of 46 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 12 of 46 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.6–2.5 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences2.5–2.4 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences2.4–2.3 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences2.3–2.2 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences2.2–2.1 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences2.1–2.0 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences2.0–1.8 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences1.8–1.7 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences1.1–1.0 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences1.0–924 ka Mya — about 1.0 occurrences924 ka–821 ka Mya — about 1.0 occurrences821 ka–719 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence719 ka–616 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence616 ka–513 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence513 ka–411 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence411 ka–308 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence308 ka–205 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence205 ka–103 ka Mya — about 4 occurrences103 ka–0 Mya — about 26 occurrences210 ka – 11.7 ka3.08 Mya0 Mya

46 occurrences of Marmota monax on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

46 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Marmota monax and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Marmota monax and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

570 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 46 sites for Marmota monax, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

28 references

Each of the 46 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 16 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Marmota monax

Credit
Cephas
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Structured light scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Marmota monax · MUZO:MT:380

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itMarmota through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)