The Himalayan marmot (''Marmota himalayana'') is a

marmot Marmots are large ground squirrels in the genus ''Marmota'', with 15 species living in Asia, Europe, and North America. These herbivores are active during the summer, when they can often be found in groups, but are not seen during the winter, ...

species that inhabits alpine grasslands throughout the

Himalaya The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 ...

s and on the

Tibetan Plateau The Tibetan Plateau (, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or the Qing–Zang Plateau () or as the Himalayan Plateau in India, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central, South and East Asia covering most of the ...

. It is

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...

ed as

Least Concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

because of its wide range and possibly large population.

Taxonomy

''Arctomys Himalayanus'' was the scientific name proposed by

Brian Houghton Hodgson Brian Houghton Hodgson (1 February 1800 or more likely 1801 – 23 May 1894) was a pioneer naturalist and ethnologist working in India and Nepal where he was a British Resident. He described numerous species of birds and mammals from the Hima ...

in 1841 who described marmot skins from the Himalayas. In the 19th century, several Himalayan marmot specimens were described and proposed as subspecies. The Himalayan marmot is very closely related to the Tarbagan marmot (''M. sibirica'') and somewhat more distantly to the—in

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines * Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts * Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...

rather different— black-capped marmot (''M. camtschatica''). These three form a

species group In biology, a species complex is a group of closely related organisms that are so similar in appearance and other features that the boundaries between them are often unclear. The taxa in the complex may be able to hybridize readily with each oth ...

and its nearest relative is the bobak species group, which includes the

bobak marmot The bobak marmot (''Marmota bobak''), also known as the steppe marmot, is a species of marmot that inhabits the steppes of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. It is a social animal and inhabits steppe grassland, including cultivated field borders. ...

(''M. bobak'') itself, as well as the

gray Grey (more common in British English) or gray (more common in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning literally that it is "without color", because it can be composed o ...

(''M. baibacina'') and forest-steppe marmots (''M. kastschenkoi''). In the past, the relatively short-furred and short-tailed marmots of the Palearctic region, i.e. Himalayan, Tarbagan, gray and forest-steppe, all were regarded as subspecies of the bobak marmot.

Characteristics

The Himalayan marmot has a dense woolly fur that is rufous grey on the back and rufous yellowish on ears, belly and limbs. The bridge of its nose and end of tail is dark brown. It is one of the largest marmots in the world, being about the size of a large

housecat The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members o ...

. Average body mass ranges from , with weights lowest post-hibernation in spring and highest prior to it in autumn. In the autumn, average weight is reportedly more than in both sexes. Total length is about , with a tail length of .

Distribution and habitat

The Himalayan marmot occurs in the

s and

at altitudes of in northeastern Pakistan, northern India,

Nepal Nepal (; ne, :ne:नेपाल, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in S ...

Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainou ...

and China. In China, it has been recorded in

Xinjiang Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...

Qinghai Qinghai (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the fourth largest province of China by area and has the third smallest po ...

, Gansu,

Xizang The Tibet Autonomous Region or Xizang Autonomous Region, often shortened to Tibet or Xizang, is a province-level autonomous region of the People's Republic of China in Southwest China. It was overlayed on the traditional Tibetan regions of Ü ...

, western

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

and

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the C ...

provinces. In the west its distribution reaches that of the long-tailed marmot (''M. caudata''), but the two are not known to hybridize. The Himalayan marmot lives in short grass steppes or

alpine Alpine may refer to any mountainous region. It may also refer to: Places Europe * Alps, a European mountain range ** Alpine states, which overlap with the European range Australia * Alpine, New South Wales, a Northern Village * Alpine National Pa ...

habitats, typically above the

tree line The tree line is the edge of the habitat at which trees are capable of growing. It is found at high elevations and high latitudes. Beyond the tree line, trees cannot tolerate the environmental conditions (usually cold temperatures, extreme snow ...

but below the permanent snow limit.

Ecology and behaviour

Himalayan marmot peeping out of its burrow

The Himalayan marmot lives in

colonies In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...

and excavates deep burrows that colony members share during hibernation. The species hibernates from the late autumn to the early spring, on average for 7 months. Burrows are between deep, given that the upper soil layer is sufficiently light and deep such as fluvioglacial, deluvial and

alluvial deposit Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Alluv ...

s. Where soil conditions are ideal on alluvial terraces, marmot colonies comprise up to 30 families, with up to 10 families living in an area of . The marmot eats plants growing on pastures, in particular the soft and juicy parts of grassy plant species like ''

Carex ''Carex'' is a vast genus of more than 2,000 species of grass-like plants in the family Cyperaceae, commonly known as sedges (or seg, in older books). Other members of the family Cyperaceae are also called sedges, however those of genus ''Carex'' ...

'', '' Agrostis'', ''

Deschampsia ''Deschampsia'' is a genus of plants in the grass family, commonly known as hair grass or tussock grass. The genus is widespread across many countries.

'', ''

Koeleria ''Koeleria'' is a common and widespread genus of plants in the grass family, found on all continents except Antarctica and on various oceanic islands. It includes species known generally as Junegrasses. The genus was named after German botanist ...

'' and flowering species like ''

Euphrasia ''Euphrasia'', or eyebright, is a genus of about 450 species of herbaceous flowering plants in the family Orobanchaceae (formerly included in the Scrophulariaceae), with a cosmopolitan distribution. They are semi-parasitic on grasses and other ...

'', ''

Gentiana ''Gentiana'' is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the gentian family (Gentianaceae), the tribe Gentianeae, and the monophyletic subtribe Gentianinae. With about 400 species it is considered a large genus. They are notable for their most ...

'', '' Halenia'', ''

Polygonum ''Polygonum'' is a genus of about 130 species of flowering plant in the buckwheat and knotweed family Polygonaceae. Common names include knotweed and knotgrass (though the common names may refer more broadly to plants from Polygonaceae). In the ...

'', ''

Primula ''Primula'' () is a genus of herbaceous flowering plants in the family Primulaceae. They include the primrose ('' P. vulgaris''), a familiar wildflower of banks and verges. Other common species are '' P. auricula'' (auricula), '' P. veris'' (cow ...

'', ''

Ranunculus ''Ranunculus'' is a large genus of about almost 1700 to more than 1800 species of flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae. Members of the genus are known as buttercups, spearworts and water crowfoots. The genus is distributed in Europe ...

'', ''

Saussurea ''Saussurea'' is a genus of about 300 species of flowering plants in the tribe Cardueae within the family Asteraceae, native to cool temperate and arctic regions of East Asia, Europe, and North America, with the highest diversity in alpine habit ...

'', ''

Taraxacum ''Taraxacum'' () is a large genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae, which consists of species commonly known as dandelions. The scientific and hobby study of the genus is known as taraxacology. The genus is native to Eurasia and Nor ...

'' ''

Iris potaninii ''Iris potaninii'' is a species in the genus '' Iris'', it is also in the subgenus of '' Iris'' and in the ''Psammiris'' section. It is a rhizomatous perennial, from Siberia in Russia, Mongolia and China. It is a dwarf plant, having either subte ...

''.

Reproduction

Females become sexually mature at the age of two years. After one month of gestation they give birth to litters of two to 11 young.

Predators

On the

Tibetan plateau The Tibetan Plateau (, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or the Qing–Zang Plateau () or as the Himalayan Plateau in India, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central, South and East Asia covering most of the ...

, marmot species form part of

snow leopard The snow leopard (''Panthera uncia''), also known as the ounce, is a felid in the genus '' Panthera'' native to the mountain ranges of Central and South Asia. It is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List because the global population is es ...

prey Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill ...

. Other predators of Himalayan marmots include Tibetan wolves, red fox, and large birds of prey like hawks, kestrels, bearded vultures, and golden eagles.

In culture

It was known to the

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

writers as the gold-digging ant apparently as reference to the fact that

gold nugget :''"Gold nugget" may also refer to the catfish Baryancistrus xanthellus or the mango cultivar Gold Nugget.'' A gold nugget is a naturally occurring piece of native gold. Watercourses often concentrate nuggets and finer gold in placers. Nuggets ...

s were found in the silts of the burrows these marmots dug. The French

ethnologist Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology) ...

Michel Peissel Michel Georges Francois Peissel (February 11, 1937 – October 7, 2011) was a French ethnologist, explorer and author. He wrote twenty books mostly on his Himalayan and Tibetan expeditions. Peissel was an emeritus member of the Explorers Club an ...

claimed that the story of 'gold-digging ants' reported by the Greek

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society ...

was founded on the golden Himalayan marmot of the Deosai plateau and the habit of local tribes such as the Minaro to collect the

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

dust excavated from their burrows. A photograph of a Himalayan marmot under attack by a Tibetan fox taken by Bao Yongqing won the overall prize in the 2019

Wildlife Photographer of the Year Wildlife Photographer of the Year is an annual international wildlife photography competition staged by the Natural History Museum in London, England. There is an exhibition of the winning and commended images each year at the museum, which later ...

award.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Himalayan Marmot Marmots Fauna of the Himalayas Mammals of Tibet Mammals of Bhutan Rodents of India Mammals described in 1841 Rodents of Pakistan Rodents of China

Taxonomy

Characteristics

Distribution and habitat

Ecology and behaviour

Reproduction

Predators

In culture

See also

References