Animalia > Chordata > Mammalia > Rodentia > Geomyidae > Thomomys > Thomomys bulbivorus

Thomomys bulbivorus (Camas pocket gopher)

Synonyms: Diplostoma bulbivorum (homotypic)

Wikipedia Abstract

The camas pocket gopher (Thomomys bulbivorus), also known as the camas rat or Willamette Valley gopher, is a rodent, the largest member in the genus Thomomys, of the family Geomyidae. First described in 1829, it is endemic to the Willamette Valley of northwestern Oregon in the United States. The herbivorous gopher forages for vegetable and plant matter, which it collects in large, fur-lined, external cheek pouches. Surplus food is hoarded in an extensive system of underground tunnels. The dull-brown-to-lead-gray coat changes color and texture over the year. The mammal's characteristically large, protuberant incisors are well adapted for use in tunnel construction, particularly in the hard clay soils of the Willamette Valley. The gophers make chattering sounds with their teeth; males and fe
View Wikipedia Record: Thomomys bulbivorus

EDGE Analysis

Uniqueness Scale: Similiar (0) 
8
 Unique (100)
Uniqueness & Vulnerability Scale: Similiar & Secure (0) 
33
 Unique & Vulnerable (100)
ED Score: 17
EDGE Score: 2.89

Attributes

Adult Weight [1]  359.9 grams
Birth Weight [2]  6.1 grams
Diet [3]  Herbivore
Diet - Plants [3]  100 %
Forages - Ground [3]  100 %
Female Maturity [4]  9 months 24 days
Gestation [4]  23 days
Litter Size [4]  5
Litters / Year [4]  1
Maximum Longevity [4]  6 years
Snout to Vent Length [4]  8 inches (20 cm)
Weaning [2]  42 days

Ecoregions

Name Countries Ecozone Biome Species Report Climate Land
Use
Willamette Valley forests United States Nearctic Temperate Broadleaf and Mixed Forests

Prey / Diet

Allium amplectens (narrowleaf onion)[2]

Prey / Diet Overlap

Competing SpeciesCommon Prey Count
Microtus canicaudus (gray-tailed vole)1

Predators

Bubo virginianus (Great Horned Owl)[2]

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Androlaelaps fahrenholzi[2]
Ceratophyllus ciliatus protinus[5]

Range Map

External References

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
1Felisa A. Smith, S. Kathleen Lyons, S. K. Morgan Ernest, Kate E. Jones, Dawn M. Kaufman, Tamar Dayan, Pablo A. Marquet, James H. Brown, and John P. Haskell. 2003. Body mass of late Quaternary mammals. Ecology 84:3403
2Thomomys bulbivorus, B. J. Verts and Leslie N. Carraway, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 273, pp. 1-4 (1987)
3Hamish Wilman, Jonathan Belmaker, Jennifer Simpson, Carolina de la Rosa, Marcelo M. Rivadeneira, and Walter Jetz. 2014. EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95:2027
4Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
5International Flea Database
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0