Marmot live in colonies, often in the boulders of large rock slides.
You'll often hear them before seeing them, as their piercing alarm whistle is audible for kilometers in the clear mountain air. The marmot has thick fur with variable coloring of grey and brown. The tip of the tail is black, the ears very short and the short muzzle grey. They are diurnal, but will sit outside their burrows at night in late summer because their thick fur and pre-hibernation fat is too hot. During hibernation, their heartbeat drops from 130 per minute to around 15 per minute and breathing drops to about 5 per minute.