Sunday, February 3, 2008

ground hog day



One of my favorite holidays is ground hog day. It's a day without any obligations - no presents, no cards, no sentiments. I also remember a particularly good drunkalog where the speaker described using any excuse to drink, including ground hog day. Yesterday during ESL I had fun drawing one and learned that a ground hog is a large prairie dog.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Errrrr, no. A prairie dog is NOT a groundhog.

Groundhogs (Marmota monax)
are also called woodchucks or marmots. They are mammals and belong to the squirrel family. They hibernate. They will weigh in at 6-11 pounds, and are 16-26 inches long.

Black-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus)are also members of the squirrel family. They generally do NOT hibernate. They will weigh between one-and-a-half to 4 pounds and measure 13-16 inches.

Check out University of Michigan's Animal diversity pages: http://animaldiversity.ummz.
umich.edu/site/accounts/
information/Marmota_monax.html
and
http://animaldiversity.ummz.
umich.edu/site/accounts/
information/Cynomys_ludovicianus.html