The Olympic marmot (Marmota olympus) is a rodent in the squirrel family, Sciuridae. It lives only in the U.S. state of Washington, at middle elevations on the Olympic Peninsula. About the size of a domestic cat, an adult weighs around 8 kg (18 lb) in summer. Its coat is brown all over with small whiter areas for most of the year, although the color changes with the season and with age. It has a wide head, small eyes and ears, stubby legs, and a long, bushy tail. Its sharp, rounded claws aid in digging burrows. It eats a variety of meadow flora, including the dry grasses that it uses as bedding in burrows. Its main predator is the coyote. Like its closest relatives, the hoary marmot and the Vancouver Island marmot, it hibernates seven to eight months a year. It is not endangered, and is protected by law in the Olympic National Park, which contains most of its habitat. Olympic marmots are social animals; they often engage in play fighting and use four different whistles to communicate.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_marmot

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1840:

Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha married Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom at the Chapel Royal, becoming prince-consort. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert,_Prince_Consort

1906:

The Royal Navy battleship HMS Dreadnought was launched, representing such a marked advance in naval technology that her name came to be associated with an entire generation of battleships. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Dreadnought_(1906)

1939:

Spanish Civil War: The Nationalists concluded their conquest of Catalonia and sealed the border with France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalonia_Offensive

1964:

The Royal Australian Navy aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne collided with and sank the destroyer HMAS Voyager in Jervis Bay, Australia, killing 82 of Voyager's personnel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne%E2%80%93Voyager_collision

2009:

The first accidental hypervelocity collision between two intact satellites in low Earth orbit took place when Iridium 33 and Kosmos-2251 collided and destroyed each other. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

interrobang: The nonstandard punctuation mark ‽ (a combination of ? and !), which may be used at the end of a sentence to express excitement or disbelief, or to indicate that it is a rhetorical question. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/interrobang

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

I think that if the beast who sleeps in man could be held down by threats — any kind of threat, whether of jail or of retribution after death — then the highest emblem of humanity would be the lion tamer in the circus with his whip, not the prophet who sacrificed himself. … What has for centuries raised man above the beast is not the cudgel but an inward music: the irresistible power of unarmed truth, the powerful attraction of its example.   --Boris Pasternak https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Boris_Pasternak