Motorway madness: The yellow-bellied marmot pops his head up from a hole in the highwayHere's one critter who likes to live dangerously.
A yellow-bellied marmot was spotted taking death-defying peeks from a hole in a highway.
Photographer Zack Clothier noticed the crafty creature - a type of ground squirrel - while stopping to shoot scenery in Montana.
He watched amazed as the creature ducked in and out of a hole in the asphalt on the Beartooth All-American Highway near Cooke City.
Zack explains: ‘I first noticed the marmot after stopping to photograph the landscape at a pullout along the road.
‘I saw him at a distance but at first did not realise that it was in a pothole.
‘I thought it was just sitting in the road as they do this quite often, but while setting up my tripod I saw a car approaching the marmot out of the corner of my eye.
Peekaboo! The critter confuses motorists by ducking in and out of the hole‘I thought for sure it would scurry out of the road to avoid being hit so I continued what I was doing, still observing from the corner of my eye.
‘When the car got almost on top of it the marmot seemed to just melt into the road. I could not see the pothole from where I was standing so at first I was just as confused as the motorists.
‘I knew that the animal did not just pull a “David Copperfield” and vanish without a trace, so I approached closer and saw the hole in the road.
‘The marmot soon raised back up from the hole when the next vehicle approached and I began shooting, moving slightly closer every time he was out of sight.
'I am not positive whether or not the marmot actually lived in the hole but it never left it.
'When it finally stopped popping its head out I walked over to the hole it seemed to be quite deep and tunnelled to one side underneath.’
source: dailymail
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