The Marble

The alpine marmot is a rodent especially common in the Alps. It is the third largest rodent in Europe after the beaver and the porcupine. Young animals of the Alpine marmot usually reach sexual maturity in their third year and leave their family at the earliest. Due to this late migration of the young, marmots live together socially in groups that can comprise up to 20 individuals.

Alpine marmots are typical representatives of an ice-age fauna, which were also found in the European lowlands during the Pleistocene. Today, as a so-called ice-age relict, their distribution is limited to mountainous elevations, as they only find suitable environmental conditions here. A hibernation period of six to seven months enables them to colonize these inhospitable regions. During hibernation, they live exclusively on their body's own fat reserves. When threatened by enemies such as golden eagles, they warn by shrill whistles and then quickly retreat to underground burrows. Alpine marmots have two different warning calls - a single whistle and a series of several, very short whistles. A single whistle indicates an immediate danger such as an eagle already in an attacking flight. On the other hand, approaching hikers or a red fox in the vicinity triggers the series of whistles with which a marmot alerts its conspecifics to a potential danger.

The Alpine marmot is a rodent that is particularly common in the Alps. It is the third largest rodent found in Europe after the beaver and the porcupine. Young animals of the alpine marmot usually reach sexual maturity in their third year and do not leave their family until then at the earliest. Due to this late migration of the young, marmots live together socially in groups that can comprise up to 20 individuals.

Alpine marmots are typical representatives of an ice-age fauna, which were also found in the European lowlands during the Pleistocene. Today, as a so-called ice-age relict, their distribution is limited to mountainous elevations, as they only find suitable environmental conditions here. A hibernation period of six to seven months enables them to colonize these inhospitable regions. During hibernation, they live exclusively on their body's own fat reserves. When threatened by enemies such as golden eagles, they warn by shrill whistles and then quickly retreat to underground burrows. Alpine marmots have two different warning calls - a single whistle and a series of several, very short whistles. A single whistle indicates an immediate danger such as an eagle already in an attacking flight. On the other hand, approaching hikers or a red fox in the vicinity triggers the series of whistles with which a marmot alerts its conspecifics to a potential danger.