More on Groundhogs (by any other name)

Bear in mind this was before the film Groundhog Day and we had never heard of a groundhog so we looked it up in the dictionary;


ground·hog also ground hog
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(groundhôg, -hg)
n.
See woodchuck. See Regional Note at woodchuck.
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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2003. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms
Noun
1.
groundhog - reddish brown North American marmot
Marmota monax, woodchuck
marmot - stocky coarse-furred burrowing rodent with a short bushy tail found throughout the northern hemisphere; hibernates in winter

We thought the 'see woodchuck' interesting as we had never heard of those either;

wood·chuck
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(wdchk)
n.
A common burrowing rodent (Marmota monax) of northern and eastern North America, having a short-legged, heavy-set body and grizzled brownish fur. Also called groundhog; also called regionally whistle pig.
[By folk etymology, probably of New England Algonquian origin.]
Regional Note: The woodchuck goes by several names in the United States. The most famous of these is groundhog, under which name all the legends about the animal's hibernation have accrued. In the Appalachian Mountains the woodchuck is known as a whistle pig. The word woodchuck is probably a folk etymology of a New England Algonquian wordthat is, English-speaking settlers "translated" the Indian word into a compound of two words that made sense to them in light of the animal's habitat.