Plains pocket gophers spend nearly their entire lives underground, so Oklahoma’s record for the species leans overwhelmingly on GBIF specimen data, 640 of the state’s 713 total records, since actually seeing a gopher above ground is rare even where they’re common. No NatureServe rank appears on file, SNR unranked, despite the species being one of the more record-rich mammals in this rank tier.
September alone accounts for 32 of the year’s monthly-tallied records, more than a fifth of the total, with July showing zero records at all, a pattern that plausibly reflects the timing of concentrated fall trapping surveys rather than any real seasonal shutdown in the gopher’s own activity, since this species doesn’t hibernate.
Full species profile
