Marmots live on the steppe of the valleys and lower slopes of Hustai National Park. They are gregarious and live in small polyandrous groups with one dominant male, several females and their young. Males will vigourously defend their females from other adult males.

With the onset of winter in early October, they plug their communal burrows with stones and go into hibernation. They will not emerge until the weather starts to warm in mid-March or early April. Although marmots spend nearly 90% of their lifetime underground, they are still the most easily observable mammal in the park during the summer. However, in the heat of the early afternoon, marmots prefer not to venture out of their burrows, as their large fat deposits can make their lives miserable when the temperature rises above 25 °C.

When hiking or riding through the park, little heads appear as marmots stand on their hindlegs to watch you pass. When approached, the animal lets out a whistled cry of alarm and bounces towards the safety of its burrow. Marmots have several different warning signals: when a potential predator is at a distance, the animal makes a long, low chirp; as a threat approaches, the call becomes shorter and higher.

Marmots are a fundamental species to the park's ecosystem, playing an important role in nutrient recycling. Their digging and construction of grass-lined underground nests help to aerate and enrich the soil, to the point where wild herbs such as sage and rhubarb can be seen growing around old marmot holes. Takhi frequently use these sites as salt licks. The marmots themselves are an important food source for raptors and wolves. Given their importance to the ecosystem, marmot density and distribution have been monitored throughout the park since 1997. With hunting outlawed and grazing pressure reduced, their numbers have swelled to an estimated 25,000.

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