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Pocket gophers are rarely seen because they spend most of their lives in underground tunnel systems. Their tails are sensitive and are used as feelers when the animals travel backward in their burrows. Pocket gophers have poor eyesight, but their other senses are acute. They have prominent, yellow incisor teeth and large, fur-lined external cheek pouches in which food is carried. Gophers are well adapted to their underground existence, with stout forelegs and strong curved claws for digging. Pocket gophers are burrowing rodents which live almost entirely underground. Hopefully most people will tolerate pocket gophers as they are an important part of grassland communities by providing habitat for many wildlife and plant species as well as improving soil health by improving soil mixing, water infiltration, and aeration.By: Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service–Wildlife Services Pocket gophers are an example of a once common Iowa species that isn't common anymore. Other than badgers, few predators can access gophers while in their burrows, however one Iowa snake, the Bullsnake or Gopher Snake, commonly preys on gophers! Many animals use gopher burrows and mounds for habitat while some plants thrive by taking advantage of the soil disturbance. Gophers are loners except for spring breeding season after which females have litters of 1-5 young in deep nest burrows. Burrows over 380 feet long have been recorded! Their burrow systems are quite extensive with shallow foraging burrows connecting with deeper nesting and food storage burrows all with a just a few mounds of soil on the surface to suggest what lurks below!
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As you can imagine, gophers are fantastic diggers. They avoid saturated soils and do best in grasslands as tree roots inhibit digging. They can be found in nearly any soil type, but thrive in sandy, loamy soils. Pocket Gophers eat a wide variety of plant materials including grasses, forbs, seeds, and roots. Their namesake "pockets" are large, fur-lined cheek pouches that are stuffed with plant materials when feeding. Gophers have large, fast growing front incisors that are used for eating tough roots as well as digging. Well designed for a subterranean lifestyle, gophers have small eyes and ears, but a well developed sense of smell and rapacious front claws used for digging. The Plains Pocket Gopher ( Geomys bursarius) is the only species of gopher found in Iowa and are unlike any other mammal found here. Today, we don't see much evidence of gophers, mostly because Iowa's agriculture is dominated by large monocultures of corn and soybeans that don't provide habitat for gophers.įormerly a common species found throughout the state, pocket gopher populations today are found in scattered, isolated patches of habitat like some of our few native prairie remnants and Wildlife Areas. Back when much of Iowa's agriculture consisted of a patchwork of hayfields, pastures, and croplands, gophers were a commonly persecuted "varmint". Their large mounds of soil marred perfectly planted fields of alfalfa and made the haying process bumpy and uncomfortable. Pocket gophers were once the bane of farmers in Iowa.