The marmottes are out
Saturday August 22, 2009 - Email this article to a friend

We’ve probably all eaten in a restaurant or stayed in a hotel called Marmotte. But how many of us have actually seen one?

You see they hibernate in the winter, when most of us are out in The Alps, and can only start to be be seen right at the end of the season as they come out of hibernation when most of us are going home.

The only ones we have probably seen are stuffed ones in a rustic mountain restaurant.

Well, they are running round all over the Alps at the moment as these recent pictures, taken by a PlanetSKI reader, show.

They live in burrows and are highly sociable and use loud whistles to communicate with one another, especially when alarmed.

The name marmotte comes from old French, marmotan or marmontaine.

They eat many types of grasses, berries, lichens, mosses, roots and flowers.

Quite cute really.