LA SELVA-BRAULIO CARRILLO MAMMALS 



113 



Family Geomyidae 



Orthogeomys cherriei 

 Cherrie's Pocket Gopher, Taltusa 



Cherrie's pocket gopher, Orthogeomys cherriei, previously was thought to be 

 restricted to low elevations of central and northern Costa Rica; however, it has 

 been documented recently that this species occurs in a broad elevational band (from 

 50 to 1 ,450 m) north and east of the Cordillera Central and north and west of the 

 Cordillera de Tilaran in northern Costa Rica (Hafner and Hafner 1987; Fig. 89). 

 Although there are no specimens of pocket gophers from La Selva or Parque 

 Nacional Braulio Carrillo, we know that they occur in these regions and we suspect 

 that the species is O. cherriei. Orthogeomys cherriei is abundant in the vicinity 

 of Santa Clara, Limon Province, where it does considerable damage to bananas. 

 Pocket gophers are difficult to locate in forests; we suspect that in lowland forests 

 they only occur in the more fertile soils that have little rock and are fairly well 

 drained. Pocket gophers are often more abundant in disturbed habitats than they 

 are in pristine forests. 



Pocket gophers destroyed L. R. Holdridge's original plantation of Para rub- 

 ber trees, Hevea brasiliensis (Euphorbiaceae), at La Selva in the late 1950' s. Hart- 

 shorn (in litt.) has seen the destruction of the basal meristem of young Welfia georgii 

 palms by pocket gophers in primary forest at La Selva. Large populations of pocket 

 gophers in the Puerto Viejo region cause severe damage to agricultural crops, 

 especially bananas, platano, and yuca, with some farmers reporting as much as 

 a 50% crop loss (Sisk and Vaughan 1984). 



Fig. 89. Cherrie's pocket gopher, Orthogeomys cherriei. Photo by R. K. LaVal. 



