Wee Beastie

[Bodryn]

Last June we stopped at Medicine Hat, Alberta and saw a few rodents like the above happily living near a restaurant. Can anybody identify this wee beastie? It was a handheld shot using Canon S1 IS at 10x optical zoom. It has been cropped way down to fit the size requirements and to improve composition.

[robertwgross]

It looks like your standard, garden-variety Prairie Dog. I think they are a little more common in the Northern Plains States of the US.

---Bob Gross---

[AFCop]

It looks like your standard, garden-variety Prairie Dog. I think they are a little more common in the Northern Plains States of the US.

---Bob Gross---
You hit the nail on the head! They're everywhere here in SD.

[Bodryn]

Thanks for your responses and I would tend to agree with you, but my Mary Ann thinks otherwise. I could say this: that having seen Prairie Dogs in South Dakota (Prairie Dog Town I think it was called) I thought they seemed a lot bigger than this guy, but that was a long time ago. These guys were about the size of a squirrel or pocket gopher. They also had a funny run to them, they would every so often lift up their front legs while continuing running across the parking lot, almost like a neurological tic that they couldn't help. That was an odd behavior I'd never seen before and they all did it. I'm going to check a reference source on this one.... I'd especially like it if somebody from Medicine Hat answered back; I thought it extremely unusual that they would be living in the commercial section of town. Can anybody shed more light on this? Does my description match that of a prairie dog?

[robertwgross]

The critter in the photo is a Prairie Dog, and they come in different sizes and fatness depending on their habitat. There is a similar mammal called the marmot, but it lives up higher in the mountains, and marmots have shorter tails with a little darker color.

It doesn't matter, they are all good to eat.

---Bob Gross---

[Khaja]

Bodryn.....

Here is a picture I took of a Prairie Dog with that sitting up behavior.

http://groups.msn.com/KhajaPhotos/2004favanimals.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=32

Khaja

[sparker1]

I agree it's a prairie dog. Marmots, by the way, are much larger than prairie dogs.

[robertwgross]

I agree it's a prairie dog. Marmots, by the way, are much larger than prairie dogs.

Whether it is prairie dogs or marmots, the size varies. Marmots spend the winter denned up deep in the rocks and snow, so when they emerge in the spring, they look pretty scrawny. By the end of summer, though, they've been eating so much that their bellies drag on the ground as they run. Marmots also vary in size between the Yellow-bellied Marmot and the Hoary Marmot. The cutest one that I ever saw was a baby marmot that was just coming out into the sun for the first time. It would have fit in the palm of your hand, and its black tail was smaller than a fingernail.

For the photographer, they all make good subjects. Prairie dogs tend to be a little lighter than 18% gray. Marmots tend to be a little darker.

---Bob Gross---

[Bodryn]

Thanks, Bob, Stan, others, for all your info. Khaja, your photo is what I think of as a Prairie Dog, fat and heavy and larger. I suppose they come in small sizes too. I don't recall any animal like that in western Minn. The guy in my picture was maybe 9 inches long and about 3 inches or less across the belly, could run very fast. I don't remember them stopping or sitting up but they had this strange run where about every six hops or so they'd reach their front paws about two or three inches without breaking their stride or slowing down. I wish I had a tape of that - I've never seen anything run like that before. It was like running the hurdles with their front legs.

I've seen marmots close up - some years back, we (two buddies and I) were hiking the High Line trail the first week of July in Glacier Natl Park at about 6000 ft altitude and thought we'd found a very nice place to sit and have a rest break. We found ourselves under attack by three marmots. I guess we had invaded their territory or something. They kept harassing us and running at us from three different directions. They were a lot bigger, brownish in color and were rather slow, fat and ungainly in their gait, they were maybe about 16 inches long and maybe 7 inches thick across the belly. I even tried dissuading them with a hiking pole but about the only thing that had an effect was when I could tip one over on its back. They were fearless, unstoppable like little army tanks. We finally moved down the trail about 50 yards and they left us alone. A hiker we'd met earlier on the trail had said a marmot had bit him in his boot but we escaped that fate, thanks to his warning.

[iof]

Prairie dog gets my vote:
http://www.pbase.com/iof/image/38280284/large.jpg


just like this guy.(taken at Henry Dorley Zoo)


Ron