Gopher
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Gopher is the common term for any of several distinct species of small burrowing rodents endemic to North America, including: the pocket gophers (family Geomyidae),[1] also called true gophers, and some ground squirrels (family Sciuridae), particularly prairie dogs and Richardson's ground squirrel.
Description
Gophers weigh around 0.5 pounds (230 g), and are about 15 inches (38 cm) long in body length, with a tail 7 inches (18 cm) long. Their lifespan is normally 2–3 years (assuming no diseases or predation). Gophers dig tunnels and subterranean chambers, and are associated with the rodent order, Rodentia. There are over 100 kinds of gophers in America. Gophers, because of their burrowing, can disrupt human plans like commercial agriculture, garden plots, some landscaping, and some underground cables. This has led to their frequent treatment as pests.
Gophers are generally timid but may attack if provoked. If deprived of their normal vegetarian food supply, gophers have been known to resort to cannibalism.
Habitat
Gophers create a network of tunnel systems that provide protection and a means of collecting food.The entrances can be identified by small piles of loose dirt covering the opening. Their burrows can be found in many areas where the soil is softer, thereby easily tunneled.The resulting destruction of plant life will then leave the area a stretch of denuded dirt. Gophers eat earth worms, grubs, plant roots, shrubs and other vegetables such as carrots, lettuce, radishes, and any other vegetables with juice. Unlike its close relative the ground squirrel, gophers do not live in large communities or show themselves above ground.
In popular culture
- Gainer the Gopher is the mascot of the Saskatchewan Roughriders in the Canadian Football League.
- An animated gopher is the official mascot of the Go programming language.[2]
- It is the name of one the internet protocols which was very popular in its early times, now mostly in disuse.
- A gopher is a character in the Disney version of Winnie the Pooh.
- A gopher figures prominently in the movie Caddyshack.
- Gophers are protagonists of the pinball machines No Good Gofers and Tee'd Off.
- The University of Minnesota's mascot is a gopher.