The plains pocket gopher is a rare presence in Colorado’s open records, with 221 records statewide and only 5 of them iNaturalist photos. That scarcity is mostly an artifact of a life lived underground, out of sight.
An eastern-plains burrower
This is a stout, nearly blind rodent of the deep loamy and sandy soils of Colorado’s eastern plains, spread across Kit Carson, Lincoln, and El Paso counties and the grasslands east of the Front Range. What it needs above all is soil it can tunnel, so it follows soil type more than any surface feature, and the fan-shaped mounds of loose earth it pushes up are usually the only sign of it. It rarely surfaces, feeding instead on roots, tubers, and plant parts it reaches from below.
Active all year, seen almost never
Pocket gophers do not hibernate. They dig and feed straight through the year, including under winter snow, so the seasonal shape of the records reflects when biologists trap and survey rather than when the animal is busy. It is present every month; it is simply almost never observed.
Status
Native to Colorado and ranked secure by NatureServe. Where it works cropland and pasture, farmers count it a pest, but its constant digging aerates and turns over prairie soils in a way little else does.
Full species profile
