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| Bobak Marmot | ||||||||||||||||
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| Marmota bobak (Müller, 1776) |
The bobak marmot (Marmota bobak), also known as the steppe marmot, is a species of marmot that inhabits the steppes of Russia and Central Asia. Here it is found in Eastern Europe, east through Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia to North and Central Kazakhstan.[2] The bobak marmot is a large analog of the North American prairie dog, with a particularly round paunch and a laid-back alert posture. Unlike most other species, bobak marmots prosper on rolling grasslands and on the edge of cultivated fields. Active for about five and a half months each year, dispersers leave their natal social group after their second hibernation. Litter sizes average a little over five, and it takes at least three years to reach sexual maturity. About 60% of adult females breed in a given year. They have a single alarm call, but studies have demonstrated that bobak marmots call faster when they live in steep terrain and slower when they live in flatter terrain. Bobak marmots have served as a natural "food" reservoir that saved many Russians from starving to death during periodic famines over the last hundred years, and their fur is used to make hats and the occasional coat. Outside Moscow, a fur-farm is experimenting with breeding bobak marmots in captivity for captive fur production.
Like other marmots, the bobak is susceptible to infection by bubonic plague. A population of bobaks living in the Ural Mountains is believed to have served as a reservoir host for the bubonic plague epidemic that struck western Russia at the end of the 19th century.
Subspecies[2]:
- M. b. bobak
- M. b. tschaganensis
References
- ^ Tsytsulina, K., Zagorodynuk, I., Formozov, N. & Sheftel, B. (2008). Marmota bobak. 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2008. Retrieved on 6 January 2009.
- ^ a b Grubb, Peter (16 November 2005). Wilson, D. E., and Reeder, D. M. (eds). ed. Mammal Species of the World (3rd edition ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-801-88221-4. http://www.bucknell.edu/msw3/browse.asp?id=12400928.
- Thorington, R. W. Jr. and R. S. Hoffman. 2005. Family Sciuridae. Pp. 754–818 in Mammal Species of the World a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference. D. E. Wilson and D. M. Reeder eds. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
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