Botta's Pocket Gopher
Thomomys bottae
Summary 6
Botta's pocket gopher (Thomomys bottae) is a pocket gopher native to western North America. It is also known in some sources as valley pocket gopher, particularly in California. Both the specific and common names of this species honor Paul-Émile Botta, a naturalist and archaeologist who collected mammals in California in the 1820s and 1830s.
Description 7
"Pocket gophers dig with their front claws and with their teeth. A pocket gopher can close its mouth behind its front teeth, so it can dig without getting a mouthful of dirt. Its ""pockets"" are fur-lined, external cheek pouches, one on each side of its mouth, which it uses to transport food. Botta's Pocket Gopher has an extremely broad geographic range, and individuals vary widely in appearance: they can be nearly white, gray, brown, or blackish-brown. They vary in size, too. Males are larger than females. Males grow throughout their lives, whereas females stop growing after their first pregnancy, so older males can be much larger than females. Pocket gophers live in small, local populations, spending almost their entire lives underground in their network of burrows."
Links:
Mammal Species of the World
Sources and Credits
- (c) Ken-ichi Ueda, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://www.flickr.com/photos/18024068@N00/145893528
- (c) 2012 Dave Strauss, some rights reserved (CC BY), http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?seq_num=404267&one=T
- (c) Franco Folini, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://lh3.ggpht.com/-E-a_9UtvbJY/T4EDPDHlkkI/AAAAAAAAEwI/NLXSWg3tv6I/s1024/P4079418.jpg
- (c) Evan Albright, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Evan Albright
- (c) Sarah Chinn, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Sarah Chinn
- (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomomys_bottae
- (c) Smithsonian Institution, some rights reserved (CC BY), http://eol.org/data_objects/16147012
