Groundhogs are also known as woodchucks, ground dogs, whistle-pigs and land-beavers. It is not a gopher or prairie dog which are in the same family, Sciuridae and is of the genus Marmota, so they are know as a type of marmot ground squirrel. It is a rodent.
They burrow in the ground (burrows have 2-5 entrances), hibernate in the winter and multiply in the spring. Each female gives birth to about 2-6 in a litter, which make their own dens after about 6 weeks old.
Besides your garden, it eats weeds and berries but also grubs, grasshoppers, insects and snails.
Predators include wolves, coyotes, foxes, bobcats, bears large hawks and owls and dogs.
Here are some cool links that are pretty informative about groundhogs:
http://icwdm.org/handbook/rodents/ro_b183.pdf
http://wildlifecontrol.info/pubs/Documents/Woodchucks/Woodchuck_factsheet.pdf
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