One of the amazing things about young yellow-bellied marmots that live in trees is their incredible ability to have fun. Many people don’t realize that marmots can and do live in places other than rocky outcroppings and boulder fields. This marmot family that consists of a large brook-no-nonsense female and her three youngsters known as pups, have been living in a tree in a meadow in Grand Teton National Park  all summer.

They have taken over a large fallen hollow tree that is leaning against a large boulder at a 45° angle at the meadow’s edge. The pups are large enough now that she leaves them home alone and goes out into the meadow to forage. While she is gone the pups spend the day inventing new games to play while they’re hanging around the house. The pup has learned a new game called “Whack a Marmot” and spent most of the afternoon popping out of the various holes in the tree trunk. In a day or so he won’t be able to use that hole as he will have gained enough weight from the females milk and eating the browse she brings back that he won’t be able to shove his chubby little head through the hole anymore.

Their home had made the list of places to stop and stare at wildlife and was constantly besieged with curious visitors that wanted to see exactly how the marmot family lived. After the female came home and found humans looking in the open end of the tree trunk and dumping Fritos into the opening in a vain attempt to get the kids to come out, she called a meeting of the family and told the kids they were bugging out. She sent them to the farthest inner reaches of the log with dire warnings as to what would happen to them from the humans and probably by her if they came out before she came back. Having been on the receiving end of the females emphatic instructions before they were much more worried about her than the humans who would bang on the outside of the trunk in an attempt to get the youngsters to come out.

It wasn’t long and she was back and after indicating to the visitors not to approach too closely she began airlifting the pups out of the trunk by grabbing them by the loose skin around their necks and carrying them off across the meadow to their new home. She managed to get two of the pups relocated and as she was returning for the last one it  could not resist one more look at everyone who had caused their eviction. In a few moments the entire family was gone and the meadow was quiet again.

Later in doing some research on this post an interesting discovery was made. Wanting to know more about marmots in general the Marmot-A-Rama page was accessed and it was found that Marmots are Italian. If you look closely at the chart below you will see that their Taxonomy clearly shows their origin and that each phyla entry is written in Italian. You can see this more clearly if you sound out the entries phonetically. Such as Chordata, pronounced ‘Chorrr dah’ taaa” or ‘mah may’ leeah’. Another way to prove this is to look carefully around the den entrance for old pieces of pasta or broken opera records. Anything with Pavarotti or the Three Tenors will prove this beyond any doubt.

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum:   Chordata

Class:      Mammalia

Order:      Rodentia

Family:     Sciuridae

Subfamily: Xerinae

Tribe:         Marmotini

Genus:       Marmota

Yeah I know, weird right? But that’s Nature for you. In case you were wondering, the person who took this shot of the young Marmot pup was not one of the bad tourists who got too close to their home. We know better, we’re professionals here. This picture was taken with a powerful, long, telephoto lens from well over a hundred yards away. We know how to do this. Just thought you should know.