Prairie Dog 



Moniana Department of Fish. Wildlife & Parks 



Of the marmot family, the hoary marmot 

 (woodchuck or rockchuck) lives in rock- 

 slides or digs burrows in alpine meadows 

 throughout Montana's Rockies. A larger 

 species, the yellow-bellied marmot, shares 

 habitat with pikas and Richardson's 

 ground squirrel, the same gopher found on 

 the prairies. It may weigh as much as ten 

 pounds and be over two feet long. Marmots 

 usually spend only May to September 

 above ground, and are in their burrows the 

 rest of the year. 



Montana Department of Fish. Wildlife & Parks 



Columbian Ground Squirrel 



Prairie dogs are sociable animals who 

 live in communities, where they seem to 

 spend a lot of time visiting from one large, 

 mounded burrow entrance to another. 

 During the summer, as they fatten for hi- 

 bernation, they eat constantly, and resem- 

 ble fat bowling pins as they sit upright. 

 They keep a sharp eye out, however, for 

 their chief predators, the hawks. One 

 Montana prairie dog town, near the Grey- 

 cliff exit on Interstate 90 east of Big Tim- 

 ber, has been designated a state 

 monument. Another is near Holter Lake 

 north of Helena. 



The winter's work of the pocket gopher 

 appears when snow melts. The mound it 

 pushes up in meadows once filled tunnels 

 in the snow. In its search for roots and tu- 

 bers, the pocket gopher may dig a hundred 

 feet or more across a mountain meadow. 

 The pouches in its cheeks are used to carry 

 food. 



Bats: Order Chiroptera 



Most of Montana's 14 species of bats oc- 

 cur throughout the state, although some 

 are rare. Some hibernate when the insects 

 that are their food supply are not available; 

 others migrate to the southern deserts. 

 Bats roost in caves, attics, deep woods, and 

 other dark places during the day. They can 

 be seen at dusk in swift zigzag flight in pur- 

 suit of insects. 



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