The camas pocket gopher is endemic to the Willamette Valley of northwestern Oregon in the United States. It is the largest member in the genus Thomomys, of the family Geomyidae. Threats to the species’ survival include urbanization, habitat conversion for agricultural use and active attempts at eradication with trapping and poisons.
About Camas pocket gopher in brief
The camas pocket gopher is endemic to the Willamette Valley of northwestern Oregon in the United States. It is the largest member in the genus Thomomys, of the family Geomyidae. The gopher forages for vegetable and plant matter, which it collects in large, fur-lined, external cheek pouches. Threats to the species’ survival include urbanization, habitat conversion for agricultural use and active attempts at eradication with trapping and poisons. Scientists believe that the gopher’s evolutionary history was disrupted when the Missoula Floods washed over the WillAmette Valley at the end of the last ice age. The species is a member of the subgenus Megascapheus, established in 1903, at that time for the camaspocket gopher alone. There are six genera of North American pocket gophers: Cratogemys, Geomys,. Orthogeomys. Pappogeamys, Thomomy, and Zygogeomy. The name Thommys derives from the Greek σωρός + μῦς, probably describing the mounds of excavated soil produced by the burrowing gopher. The word for ‘devour’ in Latin is voro, which means ‘to eat’ or ‘to devour’ The species has a dull-brown-to-lead-gray coat that changes color and texture over the year. The young are born toothless, blind and hairless, and grow rapidly before being weaned at about six weeks of age. Although the Camas pocket Gopher is fiercely defensive when cornered, it may become tame in captivity.
Its incisors are well adapted for use in tunnel construction, particularly in the hard clay soils of the WillAMette Valley. The incisor of gophers in the genera ThomomY have characteristically smooth anterior surfaces, while those of Geomy have two deep grooves per tooth and those of Crato geomys have a single groove. In the 1855 article, Johann Friedrich von Brandt was the first to refer to theCamas pocketGopher as ThomomYS bulbivorus. The first specimen of this type of gopher was apparently obtained from the banks of the Columbia River, Oregon, in 1915; it could not be located in 1915. This specimen was apparently the only place where subsequent specimens have been found on the Columbia, although it may have been stored at the Hudson Bay Museum, New York. It was probably at the northern limit of the Gopher’s geographic range, probably at Portland, the place of the confluence of theWillamette and Columbia Rivers, the only where it could be found. In 1829, naturalist John Richardson described six species of Gopher. Although he describes six species, he was unfamiliar with all specimens of the genus according to critics with all later critics. His 1829 Fauna bore a type specimen of a type of camas gopher, which he also described in 1829.
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This page is based on the article Camas pocket gopher published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 06, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
