close, and thus increase vigilance in the marmots; a single alarm call results in the marmots curiously looking around for the predator. Sightings of land predators, coyotes in particular, receive more alarm calls than aerial predators. Fishers are viewed as predators by Olympic marmots, eliciting alarm calls when just passing by a colony. It has also been observed that these trills can be used as a mechanism to trick and frustrate predators. An additional behavior that takes place when a marmot becomes nervous or bothered by a predator is that it retracts its top lip to show its upper incisors. It is almost like a greeting for predators. David P. Barash reported that when hunting Olympic marmots as prey, coyotes and cougars approach the marmot within about , advance to an alpine fir close to the victim, and then chase the marmot downhill to its colony. If the marmot is able to flee into a burrow and sound an alarm call, other marmots will scurry to their burrows for safety. But the predator does not stop here; it is usually persistent and will scratch outside the entrance to try to dig out its prey. Minutes later, when a marmot from a nearby burrow peers out to see if the predator has gone, it will sometimes sound another alarm call, which summons the predator to its burrow. It dives back underground and the predator usually remains frustrated as these alarm calls continue and force it to run around from burrow to burrow, getting tired and aggravated, and finally giving up. As humans in the Olympic National Park do not hunt the marmot, but simply observe them, they do not pose a threat. When researchers intrude on colonies to observe behavior, the families living in burrows there initially vocalize ascending calls, showing surprise, but later adjust to the presence of humans, allowing studies to proceed. The parasites of the Olympic marmot include the cestode Diandrya composita, and fleas of the genus Oropsylla. Behavior Colonies Olympic marmots are gregarious burrowing animals, living in colonies typically containing multiple burrows. Activity varies with the weather, time of day, and time of year; owing to rainfall and fog cover during June, July, and August, the marmots spend most of the day inside their burrows, and forage for food mostly in the morning and evening. In between these times, Olympic marmots can sometimes be found lying on