| The Yellow-faced Pocket Gopher feeds on starchy, tuberous roots of desert shrubs and on the roots and leaves of low-growing forbs. Like other pocket gophers, this species is considered an agricultural pest, doing extensive damage in orchards, gardens, potato patches, and other croplands. It digs long burrow systems, preferring deep sandy or silty soil. Burrow systems seem to contain only one nesting chamber, and except when breeding or raising young, these animals live alone. Yellow-faced Pocket Gophers live from less than one year (males), to a little more than one year (females). Females may reproduce within the same season as their birth and can have up to three litters in a season. Litter size averages 2-3, and ranges from 1-5.
Sexual Dimorphism:
Males are larger than females.
Length:
Range:
220-315 mm
Weight:
Range:
385-410 g males; 225-290 g females
References:
Baird, S.F., 1852. Mammals. In Exploration and survey of the valley of the Great Salt Lake of Utah, including reconnaissance of a new route through the Rocky Mountains (by H. Stansbury), p. 313. Lippincott, Grambo and Co., Philadelphia, 2 vols.
Links:
Mammal Species of the World
Click here for The American Society of Mammalogists species account
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