The groundhog’s extinct, horned relative

We don’t recommend pulling this little fella from its burrow to see if there’ll be six more weeks of winter. The small but fierce-looking Ceratogaulus hatcheri lived about 6 million years ago on the plains of what is now Kansas. It may have used those horns for self-defense.

The creature belongs to an extinct family of rodents called mylogaulids. Today, its closest living relative is the mountain beaver Aplodontia rufa. Both species reside with groundhogs, squirrels, prairie dogs, chipmunks and dormice in a group of rodents called the Sciuromorpha.

This specimen comes from the collection of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.