Woodchuck, also called groundhog, is a burrowing mammal with a chunky body. It belongs to a group of rodents (gnawing mammals) known as marmots. Woodchucks live in Canada and in the eastern and midwestern United States. According to an old superstition, a person can tell when spring will come by watching what a woodchuck does on Groundhog Day, February 2.
An adult woodchuck measures about 18 to 26 inches (46 to 66 centimeters) long, including the bushy tail. The animal has a broad head, short legs, and small eyes and ears. The coarse fur on its back and sides is mostly dark gray or brown, while the underside is mostly reddish-brown. The tip of each hair is pale gray.
Woodchucks dig complex burrows or dens that contain several compartments and may have several entrances. In winter, the woodchuck hibernates in a special, deep burrow that has only one entrance.
When a woodchuck looks for food, it often first sits up on its haunches at the entrance to its burrow. There, it looks and listens for such predators (hunting animals) as coyotes, wolves, badgers, or large hawks. Unfortunately, this habit makes the woodchuck an easy target for human hunters. Woodchucks feed on such plants as grasses, clovers, beans, peas, or grains.
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Woodchucks eat large amounts of food in the fall before hibernating. The extra food is changed to fat in their bodies, and the woodchucks live on this fat during their winter sleep. Female woodchucks usually bear four or five pups (young) each year.
