By: J.T. Pynne

If you say the word gopher, information technology usually conjures upwardly images of the quintessential tortoise. However, in that location is another type of gopher in the southern half of Georgia. A secretive and angry one.

What are they?

Southeastern pocket gophers, or sandy-mounders, are modest rodents that live nigh entirely hole-and-corner. Pocket gophers are adept diggers, creating intricate tunnel systems below the surface and obvious mounds of soil on information technology. It is a life they are highly adapted to, with reduced ears and modest optics, lips that close backside their teeth to prevent soil from entering their rima oris, and large, front-facing excavation claws. They tin can fifty-fifty use their forepart limbs to course their palms into a trivial bulldozer, which they use to push and pack soil into a plug to prevent anything from entering their tunnels.

They are called pocket gophers because they have external, fur-lined cheek pouches which they employ like pockets for transporting roots to food caches.

Where can you observe them?

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Southeastern Pocket Gopher mound. Photo credit: J.T. Pynne

The range of this species overlaps with the historic extent of longleaf pino, then they are adapted to constitute-rich understories in open landscapes. This habitat usually has few trees, typically pines, and some sort of disturbance, including from prescribed burn down or mowing. Pocket gophers' preferred habitats frequently overlap with hay or other agronomics fields, then many pocket gopher species are considered pests. (More on that in a second.)

Georgia'due south local southeastern pocket gophers are rarely plant in agriculture fields, but they may be found in grassy yards, hay fields and rights of mode, but are more typically associated with open up pine systems that are consistently burned.

What function do they play in Georgia's ecosystem?

Generally, although some people consider them agronomics pests, pocket gophers are good for the environment. They aerate soils with tunnels, plough over blank footing for new plants to sprout, help bike nutrients through the soil and, via their tunnels, provide housing for many beneficial insects. They also promote a salubrious and biodiverse ecosystem, specially when combined with prescribed burn down disturbances, because they eat the roots, shoots and leaves of resilient grasses and flowering plants. Non coincidentally, prescribed fire is one of the most of import management tools for promoting habitat for southeastern pocket gophers.

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Southeastern Pocket Gopher excavating tunnel. Photo credit: J.T. Pynne

Unfortunately, the species is on the reject.

The range of this valuable species extends beyond Georgia into Florida and Alabama, but southeastern pocket gophers are protected in each state and their population is in decline. A squad of researchers I was a role of monitored populations on several state-owned and private properties beyond the species' former range and found that pocket gophers were present at only 23.2 percentage of sites checked, or 41 of 177 of sites. In Georgia, nosotros found high population densities in the western sandhills and on quail plantations in the southwestern part of the state.

Where pocket gophers are constitute, they tin can seem prolific and locally abundant. Merely it is challenging to determine how many individuals at that place are in an expanse considering trapping is notoriously difficult. (Sometimes information technology tin take weeks to capture 1 gopher.)

In that location's plenty to beloved near this species, but it'southward generally best to leave them lone whenever possible. The subterranean being of pocket gophers makes them bold, and when exposed they can exist quite aggressive.

Southeastern Pocket Gophers have external cheek pouches to collect tubers and roots.

Southeastern Pocket Gophers have external cheek pouches to collect tubers and roots.

Fluorescence when exposed to ultraviolet light.

Fluorescence when exposed to ultraviolet light.

Fierceness bated, they are uniquely adorable. They also have a slight fluorescence when exposed to ultraviolet calorie-free – equally was recently discovered in flying squirrels. Because of their ecological benefits, blowing and cuteness (in that order), pocket gophers are worthy of our admiration, protection and further research.

J.T. Pynne is studying pocket gophers equally a doctoral student at the University of Georgia's Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources.