Wild Animals of North America / Intimate Studies of Big and Little Creatures of the Mammal Kingdom

by Edward William Nelson

Without exception they are powerfully built for their size, the head and front half of the body being extraordinarily muscled to meet the demands of their mode of life. The broad blunt head is joined almost directly on the body. The eyes are small and have the restricted vision to be expected from animals living underground. The ears are reduced to little fleshy rims about the openings, and the short naked tail is provided with nerves, which render it useful as an organ of touch.

The front teeth are broad, cutting chisels, and on each side of the mouth is a large pocket in the skin used for gathering and carrying food. On the front feet are long claws, which, when not being used to dig or handle earth, are doubled under, against the soles of the feet, so that the gopher walks on the back of them much as the ant-eater walks on its folded claws.

Peculiar to North America, pocket gophers occupy a great area extending from Illinois, Florida, and the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific coast, and from the plains of the Saskatchewan, in Canada, southward to Panama. Their vertical range within these limits extends from sea level to timber-line, at above 13,000 feet on some of the high volcanoes of Mexico. The family attains its greatest development in that wonderful region of plains and volcanoes lying about the southern end of the Mexican table-land.

In the United States these animals are best known as “gophers,” but in the range they occupy in the Southeastern States they are called “salamanders” and in Mexico are widely known as “tuzas.” As a rule they frequent treeless areas, but are found also in many types of forests from among the palms and other trees of the tropical lowlands to the oaks, pines, and firs on the mountain sides.

All members of the family live wholly underground, in many-branched horizontal tunnels, which they are continually extending in winding and erratic courses about their haunts. The tunnels are from two to about five inches in diameter, according to the size of the animal, and while usually less than six inches below the surface, the approaches to the nest and storage chambers sometimes drop abruptly two or three feet below the regular working tunnels to the level of the living quarters. At intervals along the tunnels short side branches are used as sanitary conveniences, thus enabling the occupant to keep the main passageways in a habitable condition.

The courses of the underground workings are roughly indicated on the surface by series of piles of loose earth brought up through short side passages as the tunnels are extended. These little miners’ dumps of earth vary with the size of the animal, sometimes containing more than two bushels. The outlets of the passages leading to the surface are kept plugged with loose earth. When these animals are numerous the ground is thickly dotted in all directions with earth piles, and the caving caused by the network of tunnels just below the surface renders walking difficult. The perpetual industry of these rodent miners outclasses that of the proverbial beaver.

Gophers are both diurnal and nocturnal, the gloom of their tunnels scarcely varying except when one of the outlets is temporarily opened. They are averse to light, and if the plug to a freshly made opening is removed the observer may soon catch a glimpse of the owner as he suddenly thrusts his head into view for a moment before again plugging the door with earth.

Gophers dig their tunnels by using their teeth and the strong claws on the front feet. The loose earth is pushed along the tunnel by the head, the palms of the front feet, and the breast in little jerky movements until it is ejected on the surface dump.

Owing to their poor sight, heavy bodies, and short legs, gophers are clumsy and deliberate in their movements and peculiarly helpless in the open. Apparently appreciating this, they rarely venture from their underground shelter by day except when in grain fields or similar sheltering vegetation. Here they sometimes run out two or three feet to cut down a succulent stalk and drag it hastily within the entrance of the tunnel, where it is cut into short sections and placed in the cheek pouches if to be used as food or left on the dump if the object of the cutting is finally to secure the seeds or head of ripening grain.

During the mating season in spring pocket gophers run about clumsily from one burrow to another and may often be seen on the surface by the light of the rising sun. Most of their short trips above ground are made at night, when they sometimes swarm out and wander over a limited territory. Their night wanderings are proved in California by the many bodies which the morning light often reveals in the sticky crude oil on newly oiled roads which the gophers have tried to cross.