A marmot is a small to medium-sized rodent, and in addition to there being an actual animal called a marmot, it’s also sometimes used as a name for a whole family of animals first described in the 1700s by Carl Linnaeus. The formal name of the family is “sciuridae,” which is simply the Latin word for “squirrel.” Latin borrowed the word as well; it’s based on the Greek word “skiouros,” which means “shadow tailed.”
The family sciuridae is native to North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, and thanks to humans they’re comfortably settled in Australia as well. But “marmot” (the word) is generally used only in North America, where some of the animals are actually called “marmots.” Other names for related animals (excepting about a million different varieties of squirrels) include chuck, wood-shock, groundpig, whistlepig,whistler, thickwood badger, Canada marmot, monax, moonack, weenusk, red monk, thickwood badger, prairie badger, as well as, important especially a couple days ago, “groundhog.”
As you might guess from some of the names (whistlepig and whistler in particular), these animals make a sort of whistling noise when they want to warn others in their vicinity about any sort of threat. That’s also the basis of the word “marmot” itself, which comes from the Old French word “marmotter” (to mutter).
A couple of the other names, such as “woodchuck”, “monax”, and “moonack” are derived from Native American terms; “woodchuck” comes from the Algonquian name for the animal, “wuchak.” It doesn’t have anything to do with chucking or with wood, despite that old rhyme.
Although many members of sciuridae are arboreal (and those are the ones with “shadow tails”), North American marmots and their cousins are “ground squirrels” and are much better at digging than at climbing trees (which many of them can do, just not as adeptly as other sciuridae). Groundhogs, however, are dedicated diggers and while they might theoretically be able to climb a tree here or there, as a matter of principle they generally refuse to even attempt it.
Groundhogs actually hibernate, which is probably where the North American tradition of Groundhog Day came from. Well, actually it came from Germany where it has to do with badgers instead, but the basic idea is the same: if the animal (one of several celebrity groundhogs in the US and Canada, or a “dachs” or badger in Germany) emerges from hibernation to a clear, sunshiny day, it goes back inside, which means winter is going to last another six weeks. If it’s cloudy, the animal is not frightened by its shadow and it stays outside, which signals that spring is only about a month and a half away.
The whole idea may well be a version of the myth that says clear weather on Candlemas can be used to predict a long winter. Candlemas is an old-school Christian holiday that occurs on 40th day of the Christmas–Epiphany season — which coincidentally happens to be February second. This is also the date in some countries that Christmas decorations are finally taken down. That, of course, would never work in the US because before that we need to free up shelf space for Valentines Day products.
In spite of its association (and possible origin) with Candlemas, Groundhog Day is not really ancient; it was first mentioned by name in 1840 in a diary kept by James L. Morris of Morgantown, Pennsylvania. Morris was Welsh, but lived in Pennsylvania Dutch country and was talking about what his German neighbors were getting up to on the second of February.
Groundhogs and marmots have in recent years enjoyed some fame in movies, including the film Groundhog Day, and The Big Lebowski, in which The Dude (who is A Lebowski, but not The Big Lebowski, sardonically eyes the ferret the bad guys have on a leash by saying “Nice marmot”. Ferrets are also rodents, but they’re not closely related to groundhogs or marmots. Their closest relatives are weasels, who, while they do feature in a children’s rhyme (by going “pop”), do not have their own holiday.
