As any Patriot can tell you, the many tentacles of squirel world domination reach far and deep into the framework of society with only one goal: to enslave the human race.

However, newcomers to the stuggle against the bushytail horde are often confused by our inclusion of seemingly non-skwerls in the nutzy plan to dragoon the planet. Consider the following correspondence quoted in part...

I found your website while doing a seach for marmots but you don't have much about them. You don't even have anything on the groundhog or Groundhog day which is probably good since their not squirrels anyway...

It's true that we have no current features on marmots, and we haven't reported on Groundhog Day since Canada's Wiarton Willie scandle in 1999...

In that regard, the original Wiarton Willie, an albino groundhog said to be 22 years old and Canada's answer to America's Punxsutawney Phil, died during hibernation in the winter of 1998-99.

The good burghers of Wiarton discovered this to their horror just before Groundhog Day 1999. Children wept at the announcement and Willie's death made headlines around the world (click Willie for comment).

On Groundhog Day, they put Wiarton Willie face-up in a small pine casket, bright pennies over his eyes, paws clutching a raw carrot.

But it was a fake! Turns out the real Wiarton Willie was so disgustingly decomposed he couldn't be put on display, so they found a stuffed facsimile and laid it in the casket...

As for marmots in general, they appear around the world and in all shapes and sizes. Woodchucks (groundhogs) are found at lower elevations in the eastern United States and Canada, while the common marmots of Europe, Asia and North America are found at higher, even alpine elevations.

     
     
Assorted marmots from various sources - click here for NA range map

So, what's our position on marmots? Are they in fact skwerls? Indeed... The marmot is a member of the Sciuridae family, i.e. skwerls. Thus, they are hand-in-hand with the slavering chitterbox dream of conquest.

But what is the marmot's role in squirrel world domination? The answer to that question is in the resolution of a 2500 year old mystery...

It begins with the legend of the "golden ants." Herodotus, the Greek historian, wrote of creatures that dug up rich, gold bearing soil on the eastern frontier of the Persian Empire (click for map). The legend attracted dozens of treasure seekers over the centuries until finally Herodotus' story was dismissed as fabrication.

   However, that changed in 1996. Based on a tip from an indigenous source, French explorer Dr. Michel Peissel was escorted into the dangerous and inhospitable territory of Baltistan by Pakistani army guides. There, on the Dansar plain he discovered a horrible truth: there were strange creatures mining gold on the steppe, but they were definity not ants; they were englutted, burrowing marmots (click Dr. Peissel for comment).

With that discovery, the 2500 year old mystery was solved. Dr. Peissel concluded that the legend began with a translation error. "Mountain ant" is the ancient Persian word for marmot. Thus, Herodotus simply made a mistake when he translated the Persian report of gold-mining skwerls into Greek.

A mistake? Hardly. The original Persian report was meant to warn the world of an impending crisis: the rise of squirrel world domination. Herodotus deliberately changed the report in the belief that he would win favor in the new world order.

Herodotus' deception was discovered a few years later by Alexander the Great. Alexander then swept across Persia in an attempt to quash the bushytail menace.

In 326 b.c., he reached the Punjab where his troops suddenly panicked. They decided they would go no further and the "Golden Ants" became legend. Alexander himself died two years later at age 33. Coincidence?

Today, Balistan's marmots are unimpeded as they continue to extract gold for the nutzy war coffer. It's also no stretch of imagination to conclude that marmots are behind every major economic disaster affecting the human race in the last 2500 years (click marmot for comment).

Thus, Patriots, it would seem that all that glitters is not gold... and the only remaining question must be, when will it ever end?