The little critter seen above might be called a yellow-bellied marmot, but there’s nothing cowardly about this critter. His den, as you can see, is actually a pothole in a highway in Montana! Apparently, the little critter will pop his head out, and then melt back into the road when traffic is coming. Coyotes aren’t the only critters that can adapt to the presence of the car, apparently.
The unusual image was captured by photographer Zack Clothier, who described the unusual incident this way: “I thought it was just sitting in the road, as they do this quite often, but while setting up my tripod I saw out of the corner of my eye a car approaching the marmot. I thought for sure it would scurry out of the road to avoid being hit so I continued what I was doing, still observing from the corner of my eye. When the car got almost on top of it, the marmot seemed to just melt into the road.”
Apparently the marmot, a relative of the prairie dog also called a rock chuck (that’s a cool name), had made the hole into a den beneath the road, with that entrance out as well as a second entrance from along the other side of the road. How ingenious! I wonder if him seeing his shadow means six more weeks of bad traffic?
Tags: marmot, prairie dog, Montana, marmot lives in a pothole in a highway, unusual homes, unusual animals, unusual animal dens, marmot lives in a pothole, Zack Clothier, yellow-bellied marmot
