“The shrill resounding whistles of numbers of hoary marmots greeted us from all sides as they sent forth their notes of surprise, indignation and warning as we topped the crest; and there is no sound that gives a more eerie feeling that this same long drawn whistle heard unexpectedly in the solitudes of the high mountain valleys. It was named Arctomys Valley in their honor.” So wrote surveyor and alpinist Arthur Oliver Wheeler [1860–1945] after the 1911 Alpine Club of Canada–Smithsonian Robson Expedition.

Although the North American marmot is of the genus Marmota, the rodent that inhabits the Alps and Pyrenees is of the genus Arctomys, a word derived from the Latin for “mountain mouse.”