Forest-steppe marmot

The forest-steppe marmot (Marmota kastschenkoi) is a ground-dwelling rodent of the marmot genus that lives in south-central Russia. It occupies wooded forest steppe at about 180 to 450 metres above sea level, in a fairly small region just east of the upper Ob River. For a long time it was treated as a subspecies of the grey marmot (Marmota baibacina), which lives farther south, and it was separated mainly because the two have different diploid chromosome numbers. Adults measure 45 to 66 centimetres in head and body length. They are lightest in spring after hibernation, at around 3 kilograms, and heaviest in autumn before it, at up to 8.9 kilograms. Hibernation lasts about six and a half months and begins in August or September. A 2011 estimate put the population at roughly 14,000 to 16,000 animals, a figure described as stable over several decades.