Natural History

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Today is the day of the groundhog.

That’s what I call Marmota monax.

Most Americans call this animal a woodchuck.

Other names for it are the “land-beaver” (LOL) and the whistle-pig (because they do whistle as an alarm call).

It is the most common marmot species in North America. Its range extends from Alaska to Alabama, and it is the only species of marmot in the eastern US and Canada.

Tomorrow is their day, because in the US and Canada, the hibernating groundhogs will be woken from their slumber. These animals are true hibernators, and although they do wake up during February, even captive woodchucks aren’t moving around this early in the month.

The animals are not being woken up to see if they are still alive after months of dormancy, which actually would make some sense.

No, these animals are called upon to do something far more important.

You see, we might have sophisticate technology and even more sophisticated models for making weather forecasts, but we need something else.

After all, they still sell Farmer’s Almanacs in this country.

And when it comes to predicting when the winter weather will subside, what better expert to consult than a giant hibernating squirrel?

So tomorrow morning, captive groundhogs throughout the US and Canada will be woken up from their winter slumber. Their handlers will be wearing thick gloves or gauntlets when they wake up the woodchuck weathermen. The reason is simple. These creatures hate being taken out of hibernation, and they have sharp teeth.

If the groundhog sees its shadow, then there will be six more weeks of winter. If the groundhog does not, then there will be an early spring. I’ve always wondered how they knew what the groundhog saw,  because I don’t think a drowsy groundhog is going to see much.

This holiday happens every February 2. Its roots are in the German custom of using badgers or hedgehogs to predict the length of the winter at Candlemas. Large numbers of Germans settled in Pennsylvania during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  They discovered that their new homes had no hedgehogs and no badgers (North American badgers don’t live that far east.)

So the Germans began using groundhogs. Most of these Germans were not from the parts of the German-speaking world that had Alpine marmots, so no one thought to connect this North American species and the one found in Europe.

The most famous of these groundhog festivals is the one held in the hamlet of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. The famous groundhog that will be making his weather prognostication at that well-known festival is Punxsutawney Phil.  And this year,  Phil will send his prediction via text message!

And he won’t be the only groundhog making these predictions. There are scores of captive groundhogs that will be called upon to predict when winter will end.

And yes, there is also a film about Groundhog Day that is worth watching:

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I just hope that tomorrow doesn’t start repeating itself.