Georgia Gopher 
Mississippi Valley, while several closely related forms occur in 
the Southern States. 
Georgia Gopher 
Geomys tuza (Ord) 
Also called Pocket Gopher, Salamander. 
Length. 10 inches. 
Description. Cinnamon-brown with a somewhat fulvous tinge, 
an indistinct darker median stripe on the back; below dull 
ochraceous; hairs on the feet white, tail almost naked. 
Range. Pine barrens of southern Georgia; represented in Florida 
and Alabama by closely related geographic races. 
This little animal furnishes another example of the ambiguity 
of popular names. By all rights of priority and descent he is 
entitled to the name of gopher given to their Western relatives 
by the early French explorers, and signifying ‘‘ honeycomb” in 
reference to their numerous burrows. Unfortunately our Southern 
pioneers bestowed this name upon a burrowing tortoise, while the 
true gopher was christened the ‘‘ salamander,” a name which is 
misleading and to which he has no just claim. Popular names, 
however, are too firmly established to yield to argument, and so 
the Georgia gopher will remain the salamander in spite of us. 
Thoroughly adapted for a subterranean life, these animals 
spend almost all their time in their burrows, and even where 
they are abundant few people are acquainted with their appear- 
ance or habits, their presence being known only by their bur- 
rows and the gnawing of roots and vegetables. 
‘Gopher burrows seem to have neither beginning nor end,” 
writes Vernon Bailey. ‘‘They are extended and added to year 
after year and in many cases those dug by a single animal 
would measure a mile or more, if straightened out. At the end of 
a year a gopher may often be found within twenty rods of the point 
from which he started, but in travelling this distance he has paid 
no attention to the points of the compass. He follows a tender 
root for a few feet, then moves to one side, encounters a stone 
and makes a second turn. A layer of mellow soil entices him off 
in another direction, and so on through a thousand devious crooks 
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