Due to adverse weather, Dr. Kenneth Armitage will not be able to travel to Kansas City for his speaking engagement at the Library on Wednesday, February 2, 2011. An update will be sent if the event is rescheduled. But you can still learn about the biology of marmots and the history of Groundhog Day from the comfort of home. Check out interviews with Dr. Armitage on our blog and in the Kansas City Star. To celebrate Groundhog Day, Kenneth Armitage, one of the world’s leading experts on groundhogs—properly known as marmots—will discuss the evolution of the animal as well as the history of this most unlikely of holidays. Armitage, professor emeritus of behavioral ecology at the University of Kansas, has spent more than 40 years studying the marmot, particularly of the yellow-bellied variety. Results from the decades-long study reveal that marmots are growing larger, healthier, and more plentiful in response to climate change. “It turned out that long-term studies of this kind are quite rare,” Armitage says. “Yet, it’s precisely the kind of data that you need to determine what climate change is going to do.”