Alpine marmot Marmota marmota
Distribution: Alps, Carpathians, Pyrenees, Tatra mountains of Europe.

Alpine marmots live in grazed sub-alpine pastures and higher elevation alpine regions. Like many other Old World marmots, alpine marmots live in family groups where there is a breeding pair and offspring from previous years. Older male offspring have been shown to help thermo-regulate younger siblings during the cold alpine winters. Occasionally sons may mate with their mothers. About half the adult females will breed in a given year. Litter sizes are small, about two and a half pups. Active seasons are relatively long: five and a half months, but young tend not to disperse for at least 3 years. Sometimes new adult males move into a social group and kill pups. Such male infanticide has also been reported in golden marmots. Alpine marmots have two different alarm calls. They commonly whistle and occasionally produce a descending whistle. The more common whistle tends to be repeated a variable number of times and is associated with the degree of risk a caller experiences.