Marmots are generally large ground
squirrels. Those most often referred to as marmots tend to live in
mountainous areas such as the Alps, northern Apennines, Eurasian
steppes, Carpathians, Tatras, and Pyrenees in Europe and northwestern
Asia; the Rocky Mountains, Black Hills, Cascades, and Sierra Nevada
in North America; and the Deosai Plateau in Pakistan and Ladakh in
India. The groundhog, however, is also properly called a marmot,
while the similarly sized but more social prairie dog is not
classified in the genus Marmota but in the related genus Cynomys.
Marmots typically live in burrows
(often within rockpiles, particularly in the case of the
Yellow-bellied marmot), and hibernate there through the winter. Most
marmots are highly social, and use loud whistles to communicate with
one another, especially when alarmed.
Marmots mainly eat greens and many
types of grasses, berries, lichens, mosses, roots and flowers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmot
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