CLEVELAND — A groundhog is a woodchuck is a whistlepig.
So Thistle the Whistlepig took center stage Saturday during Groundhog Fun Day at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. The annual event takes place the Saturday before the actual Groundhog Day, which falls this year on a Friday.
Harvey Webster, the museum’s wildlife director, told a mostly youthful audience that the common names groundhog, woodchuck and whistlepig all apply to the same rodent species, officially marmota monax.
Handler Steven Gibson showed off Thistle, a runt cast away by its mother but rescued about 2-1/2 years ago. Under Gibson’s care, she’s grown to weigh about 15 pounds. Today, seemingly oblivious to the crowd, Thistle calmly munched on handouts of walnuts, banana chips and commercial feed.
Webster explained that a groundhog, like any other rodent, has two sharp front teeth that keep growing but wearing down all its life. Those teeth help a wild groundhog dig an elaborate burrow under as much as one-eighth of an acre. The groundhog stays relatively clean all the while because it can close its ears, and its coarse fur easily sheds dirt.
You probably know the groundhog legend: If Pennsylvania’s Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow on Groundhog Day, we’ll have six more weeks of winter. Webster traced the legend back to Europe, where hedgehogs and badgers often stir this time of year. He said immigrants to Central Pennsylvania mistook their new home’s groundhogs for those Old World creatures.
By Webster’s standards, Phil hasn’t proven to be much of a prognosticator. Besides, groundhogs seldom stir this early in Northeast Ohio. Still, Webster said a museum volunteer saw one in Lake County during the current thaw. Early groundhogs are usually male, seeking not a tan but a mate.
Inside the museum, Thistle’s shadow appeared today. A spotlight helped. But Thistle seemed to pay it no mind.
Did her indifference promise an early spring? Chuckling, Webster said, “One can always hope.”
