Olympic marmot
Olympus olympus Merriam, 1898. The 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. In 2009, it was declared the official endemic mammal of Washington. The species shows the greatest sexual dimorphism found in marmots, with adult males weighing on average 23% more than females.
About Olympic marmot in brief
Olympus olympus Merriam, 1898. The 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. In 2009, it was declared the official endemic mammal of Washington. The species shows the greatest sexual dimorphism found in marmots, with adult males weighing on average 23% more than females. It can be identified by a wide head, small eyes and ears, stubby legs, and a long, bushy tail. Its sharp, rounded claws aid in digging burrows. It 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. During hibernation beginning in September, they are in a deep sleep and do not eat, causing them to lose half their body mass. Adults emerge in May and their young in June. The burrows of this marmot are made in colonies, which are found in various mountain locations and differ in size. A colony may contain as few as one marmot family or multiple families with up to 40 marmot. The marmot has 40 chromosomes instead of 42, all of which are characteristics that resemble the subgenus Marmota. It has a diet consisting mainly of a variety of meadow flora, including dry grasses, which it also uses as bedding in burrows, and is preyed on by various terrestrial mammals and avian raptors.
Its main predator today is the coyote. It’s rated a species of the least concern on the IUCN Red List. It was first formally described in 1898, as Arctomys o Olympicus, from a specimen he and Vernon Orlando Bailey collected on the Sol Duc River. The genus, ArCTomys, is from the Greek for \”bear-mouse\”. The species name, o Olympus, was given because this species is native to the Olympic peninsula. The closest relatives of this species are the hoaries marmot and the Vancouver Island marmot. This is the largest of the six marmot species found in North America, averaging slight heavier in mean mass than hoary Marmot and Vancouver marmot found in Canada. The average size of a marmot adults typically weigh from 2. 7 to 67 cm in length, with the average being 71 cm in length. The tail is bushy and ranges from 18 cm long and is from 67 to 75 cm in length. This species may have the most pronounced sexualDimorphism in mar mots, and adult males weigh on average 4.7 to 9 kg, while adult females weigh 1 to 7 kg in autumn and adult females weighing 3 to 7kg in spring and post spring at peak emergence at spring time. The female marmot reaches sexual maturity at three years of age, and produce litters of 1–6 every other mating season.
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This page is based on the article Olympic marmot published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 01, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
