Alpine marmot in Hohe Tauern National Park, Austria
© Misja Smits/Minden Picture
Happy Groundhog Day (again?)!. Groundhog Day
If you're reading this for the first time, Happy Groundhog Day! And if you're reading this for the hundredth or thousandth time, we wish you luck in breaking out of your infinite time loop. Then you can join the rest of us as we either brace for six more weeks of winter or sigh with relief that fair weather is on the way – depending, of course, on the shadow of a certain burrowing rodent.
Actually, this confrontational-looking rodent isn't a groundhog but an alpine marmot. Groundhogs are in the marmot family and both rodents share similar burrowing habits. But the groundhog is unusual in that it lives at low elevations, unlike most marmots, which are mountain-bound.
So, does it count if a marmot sees its shadow on Groundhog Day? Only time will tell – well, assuming the day doesn't reset as soon as you go to bed.
Brown bear mother and cub in Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska
Two Old World swallowtail butterflies on a flower
Southern cassowary father with chicks, Kuranda, Queensland, Australia
Elephant walking in the Okavango River, Botswana
Long-beaked common dolphin pod and diving Cape gannets hunting Pacific sardines off the Eastern Cape, South Africa
An indigo bunting at the John James Audubon Center at Mill Grove in Audubon, Pennsylvania
Spotted deer, Ranthambore National Park, Rajasthan, India
Scarlet macaw in Costa Rica
