Gopher

Gopher (French, gauffre,”honeycomb”), small American burrowing mammal. There are three unrelated types: the ground squirrel, gopher tortoise, and pocket gopher, so called because it honeycombs the soil. Technically, the term gopher refers to the pocket gophers.

Pocket gophers are widely distributed throughout southern Canada and the United States, and occur as far south as Panama. Gophers are stocky, rat-like animals, 9 to 30 cm (4 to 12 in) in head- and body-length, covered with soft, short fur. They are characterized by two large, fur-lined pockets, one on the outside of each cheek, in which they store food. Their heads are wide and depressed, and the eyes and ears are small; the incisor teeth, well developed for gnawing, are fluted in the eastern varieties of pocket gopher. The limbs are short and the feet have powerful claws, which are longer on the forefeet. The thick, almost hairless tail, 4 to 14 cm (2 to 6 in) long, is a sensitive organ that the pocket gopher uses in finding its way about its underground tunnels, being able to run backwards almost as quickly as forwards. Female gophers give birth once a year, producing two to ten offspring.

Pocket gophers are voracious and feed on any type of vegetation found underground. They destroy food trees by gnawing away the roots, and they also ravage tuber and bulb gardens. The damage they do has become so serious that steps have been taken to control these animals wherever they are found. Pocket gophers, however, also improve soil quality by loosening compacted soil and by burying organic material.

The largest pocket gopher is the camas rat, which reaches a length of 30 cm (12 in). Common in the upper Mississippi Valley is the dark brown prairie gopher. This gopher presents a danger to the flood-control structures of the Mississippi River because it often builds its burrows in levees.

Scientific classification: Pocket gophers make up the family Geomyidae, of the order Rodentia. The family contains 8 genera and more than 30 species. Because of the extreme variations among members of the species, more than 300 subspecies have been named. The camas rat is classified as Thomomys bulbivorus, the dark brown prairie gopher as Geomys bursarius.