Daniel Blumstein

So I've seen that a couple times.

So that's sort of imagine emergence.

Now, if I lived surrounded by my fleas all winter, what would I do the first thing?

What would you do?

You go find a new burrow.

Yeah, yeah.

Sometimes they use different burrows after they emerge.

They don't eat anything underground.

They basically eat above ground stuff.

And they don't typically drink.

They get their moisture through vegetation that they're eating.

So if there's a killing frost in October or September, that pretty much kills the vegetation, dries things out, and then they probably hibernate after that.

Yeah, overwinter mortality is a huge source of mortality.

Only 50% of marmot babies born in one year will be alive the next year.

And they emerge.

And if it's a good year, if there's a lot of insulation in the snow and they have a good burrow and whatever, they come out and they're fat.

I mean, they haven't lost a lot of weight over winter.

But if it still is snow-covered, which it is some years, you watch them waste away and lose weight because there's nothing to eat.

So getting up too early is...

can be costly if there isn't the food for them to eat.