A pocket gopher is a burrowing rodent common throughout North and Central America, spending nearly all its life underground. These solitary mammals create extensive tunnel systems, and their physical characteristics are highly adapted for a subterranean existence. Since they are rarely seen above ground, identifying their distinct features and the evidence they leave behind is key.
General Body Profile and Size
The pocket gopher has a thickset, cylindrical body shape, suited for pushing through soil. Its body length typically ranges from about 5 to 14 inches, with adult males generally being larger than females. The animal lacks a distinct neck; its head merges directly into its powerful shoulders.
The gopher’s eyes and external ears are quite small, a feature that protects them from dirt while tunneling. Its fur is fine and soft, with a color that can vary widely from nearly black to pale brown or even almost white, often closely matching the local soil color. The tail is short and sparsely haired, serving as a sensory organ that helps the gopher navigate and guide its movements when traveling backward through the tunnels.
Defining Features: Pouches, Teeth, and Claws
The name “pocket gopher” comes from its most distinctive feature: two large, external, fur-lined cheek pouches. These pouches are used exclusively for transporting foraged materials, such as roots and stems, back to their underground storage chambers. The pouches open outside the mouth and can be turned inside out for cleaning.
Gophers possess a single pair of prominent, continuously growing incisor teeth on both the upper and lower jaws. These chisel-like front teeth protrude even when the mouth is closed, thanks to lips that can seal behind the incisors. This adaptation allows the animal to use its teeth to cut roots and loosen soil without ingesting dirt during excavation.
The forelimbs are short, muscular, and powerfully built, ending in broad front feet equipped with five exceptionally long, sharp claws. These claws are the gopher’s primary digging tools, used to loosen the earth before the excavated soil is pushed out of the burrow with its forefeet and chest.
Identifying Gophers by Their Mounds
The most common way to identify a gopher’s presence is by the mounds of earth it creates. As the gopher excavates, it pushes loose dirt to the surface, forming characteristic soil mounds. These mounds are typically fan-shaped or horseshoe-shaped, unlike the symmetrical, volcano-like cones left by moles. The entrance hole, or “soil plug,” is offset and usually found near one side of the fan-shaped mound, unlike a mole’s mound where the plug is centered. The gopher actively plugs the entrance with soil to protect its tunnel system from predators and to maintain a stable underground environment. These mounds are most frequently observed in the spring and fall when the gophers are most active in their shallow tunneling.